A good corner store — or even a dollar store — can be a godsend during a pandemic

I wasted a lot of flour early in the COVID-19 pandemic, back when flour was hard to find in grocery stores, flying off shelves like cheap Barefoot wine on sale.

Sheltering-in-place last spring led seasoned and would-be bakers, such as me, to embark on marathon stress baking. I like to make desserts using my candy apple red Kitchen Aid mixer, and I thought I might experiment with baking bread again.

My bread smelled good but tasted like a preschool playdough experiment.

I gave up on striving for fresh bread. Cooking flavorful meals is more my strength, and all the extra time at home reminded me of the unopened cookbooks in my pantry.

I cinnamon-brined and fried Cornish hens, following a recipe from “Between Harlem and Heaven” by JJ Johnson and Alexander Smalls. I tried a buttermilk pancake recipe by Breakfast Queen Ina Pinkney. Ina no longer welcomes diners at her closed West Loop restaurant, but you’ll find the secrets to those pancakes in her cookbook “Ina’s Kitchen.”

I know how to fry chicken, but I had never fried for my family because I love them too much. Besides, oil splatters all over. Now I cook fried chicken monthly.

“Down Home with the Neelys,” a cookbook by Pat and Gina Neely, suggests a sugar rub. I blend in Indian spices, as directed by Asha Gomez in “My Two Souths,” before dropping chicken thighs into hot peanut oil.

For a Sunday dinner, I have practiced making Thanksgiving-style dressing full of sage and macaroni and cheese. Finally, thanks to a colleague, I learned the secret to crisp lemon Greek potatoes (lots of olive oil.)

At home now, we often eat global mashups — roasted chickpeas and vegan collard greens, gochujang short ribs and southern-style cabbage. Among my kitchen staples are smoked paprika, vanilla, buttermilk, garlic, cracked black pepper, olive oil and, when I can find it, duck fat.

All this cooking, of course, has meant a lot of planning and grocery shopping, complicated by the pandemic. There still are lines sometimes outside stores to allow for social distancing. I have to figure out the best time to go shopping, and how to cope with cancellations from gig grocer delivery services. My mini meltdowns, I know, are minor in the scheme of coronavirus frustrations.

I woke up early one weekday to go to a chain pharmacy. I wanted to be there when their wholesaler’s latest shipment of cleaning products arrived. I was the first in line at 7 a.m. and patted myself on the back. But seniors who came after me were allowed in first, understandably, and I was out of luck.

Another time, early in the pandemic, I searched multiple stores for red lentils. I almost broke down in an aisle when I repeatedly came up empty. Did I really want to trek from the South Side to Devon Avenue for legumes?

Then I remembered Valley of Jordan, a corner store in my Hyde Park neighborhood. The tinkle of a bell over the door heralds your arrival at an oasis. I marveled at the stacks of colorful lentils, rolls of toilet paper, plenty of bottles of hand sanitizer and paper towels. Paydirt!

Soon after that, I drove to one of those ubiquitous dollar stores on the South Side. Cleaning supplies were in abundance. My house soon smelled like generic, yet effective, Lysol.

Also in Hyde Park is Open Produce, a corner store open until 2 a.m. that sells the tastiest smoked bacon. Open Produce is packed with fresh produce and locally sourced foods.

Corner stores and dollar stores have unsavory reputations in many Black neighborhoods. From complaints about rude service and a lack of fresh food to uneven pricing, the criticisms are expansive and valid. But these stores are often a lifeline — the only or best-stocked option — in many communities.

Grocery stores like Open Produce and Valley of Jordan upend the conventional wisdom as to what you’ll find on the South and West Sides. True, they operate in an integrated neighborhood, but their models could and should work in other places.

For more than a decade, organizers at the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) have campaigned to improve corner stores in Englewood. They have appealed to the store owners to stock more than junk food and wilted vegetables, and they’ve had some success. At the moment, IMAN, Teamwork Englewood and other nonprofit groups are working together, under the banner of Go Green on Racine, to open a fresh market corner store, part of larger food justice mission.

Hot Cheetos and crisp bell peppers can co-exist. There is nothing inherently bad about the idea of a little corner store or dollar store. When well stocked and well lit, they can be community assets.

Natalie Moore is a reporter for WBEZ.org

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