“Where’s the burger?” I heard from downstairs as my wife rummaged through our small basement freezer. I got up and checked our hand-written freezer inventory. “It should be there,” I shouted down, imagining her navigating around multiple objects including a huge, year-old bag of edamame. That we even have a stocked and inventoried freezer is a result of this last year’s crisis. So is the fact she can’t find the burger.

We bought the freezer years ago. We went in with some friends on a buffalo. In preparation, we bought the small freezer only to realize our 30-pound share wasn’t really enough to justify buying a 5-cubic-foot freezer. After a few meals and an extended blackout where we lost the rest of the meat, we turned it off.

Being somewhat ignorant of how to use a freezer was the kind of suburban convenience we could afford. That changed a year ago when toilet paper and Lysol spray started flying off the shelves, and you couldn’t find chicken at the grocery store. We suddenly had to follow the path of millions of Americans and American manufacturers in changing our supply chain from “just in time” to “just in case.”

Making that transition came with lessons — lessons both individuals and companies had to learn and are still learning. For example, a year later, and you still can’t find Grape-Nuts cereal at the store. Only one factory in the world makes it. People stuck at home eating more cereal have forced that factory to produce higher-demand brands. Sorry, Grape-Nuts lovers!

A year ago, people wondered where the bottom was. With empty shelves at stores and the virus running rampant in meat processing plants, they began storing up for the possibility of the crisis becoming even worse.

In our house — and I’m guessing we probably weren’t alone — that led to some, in retrospect, less than rational decisions. For some reason, we bought a giant bag of edamame — a food that is used principally as an appetizer and that needed freezing. We also ended up with 20 pounds of dried beans for 16-bean soup.

Turns out, no one in the house liked 16-bean soup. In a mild diatribe — mild because people cooped up with each other around here, wisely and thankfully, chose not to rock the boat overly — my wife clearly indicated that 16 beans was too much: “They all blend together to make no flavor at all!” This led to my suggesting we clear the almost-finished tropical bird puzzle off the unused end of the kitchen table and focus on separating the 16 beans into separate piles. “No,” my daughter groaned, “I just found the last piece under the table!”

The discussion continued into other foods that don’t need to be mixed, such as mixed nuts (again, flavors cancelling each other out) and a chicken, cauliflower and mashed potatoes dinner served up the week before (the colors were all the same).

I know a number of people who are much further along the learning curve. One colleague makes his own cheese using local milk. Another takes advantage of his large family to grow and harvest most of the food they eat. Another family has for years only eaten meat they hunted. My sister created a commune of sorts with her neighbors and their combined backyards, sharing the fruits and labors of a large, diverse garden. These people, along with various YouTubers, became the gurus for us wannabe semi-homesteaders.

As the year continued, we became better at this “just in case” approach. We bought staples in bulk that made sense for many different meals. We got much better at planning meals. My wife originally thought I was crazy for bringing home 1 pound of yeast and 25 pounds of flour, but we’ve been making bread every week since.

The same learning process occurred with growing vegetables. We failed at many, but the tomatoes and squash worked so well we’re waiting for next season instead of buying them from the grocery store. We’ve got this year’s herb crop growing in the window. I haven’t had the time to take up hunting, but at least we are supporting an area rancher focused on grass-fed cattle.

Of course, we still have more to learn. The edamame bag remains in the freezer — continually getting in the way, ready to help us wait out the next apocalypse with an appetizer, and definitely not the top need of the local food bank. Hopefully, we will have stored enough soy sauce to go with it.