How Stuffed Peppers Kept Me From Killing My Roommates

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In March of 2020, I had just turned 22. I was prepping to graduate from Loyola University Chicago and searching for a job in journalism — a notoriously tough field to start out in, pandemic or not. The virus started spreading, and the jobs started disappearing. Chicago, my once-vibrant home where people scattered like ants as the CTA trains screeched into the station, was deserted. It was eerie. The internet was swarming with newly viral recipes: banana bread, sourdough starters, homemade pizzas. I wasn't interested in those, they didn't strike my fancy. In a time of severe isolation for most, I was stuck with roommates. Don't get me wrong, we had our issues. The dishes were almost never done, and we disagreed on whose responsibility they were. But in my boredom, I took up cooking, and for once I didn't mind cooking for them as well. I was one of many COVID-induced chefs who began as amateurs and blossomed into connoisseurs that rivaled the best of takeout menus. The only problem was, I'm a vegetarian, and my roommates are born-and-bred Midwesterners, set in their ways of eating and enjoying meat at nearly every meal. But by April, I had sprung head-first into a phase of cooking stuffed peppers several times a week, and they had followed me down the rabbit hole. There were no disagreements about whether to put meat in the filling or not — we didn't need it, there was enough flavor and protein regardless. And the dishes were always done, somehow without a single argument or passive-aggressive slam of a door. The peppers were fun and colorful, Instagram-worthy in a time that lacked almost anything visually intriguing. They became a source of collaboration instead of the division that had seeped in through our 100-year-old Chicago apartment's walls, a result of being trapped with no one but each other for weeks on end. It's superstitious, maybe, but I think these peppers may have saved us from severing our relationship forever. We mended our fracturing friendships and became a family once again, eating dinner together and making sure the kitchen was clean.

April 2020

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Mary Norkol

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