First came the sourdough craze; next, homemade cheese. Ricotta, to be specific. Since pandemic times, home cooking has taken on a life of its own. As the spaces in which we work, eat, play, and sleep have become, for many people, one and the same—and trips to run errands and grab groceries are kept to a socially distanced minimum—home cooks everywhere are embracing a slower, more intentional, zero-waste approach to cooking everyday foods, making do with ingredients on hand.

“Obviously, we have a lot more time now than we did before, and I think it’s great that people are learning how to provide for themselves and their families,” said food artist Laila Gohar on a recent episode of At a Distance. “For me, it was so wild how far away we had come from that, as a species—the fact that most people don’t know how to handle a knife, don’t know what to do with a raw vegetable, is a little bit shocking. The fact that we’ve kind of been forced to go back to that, I think, is a really beautiful thing.” Now, making cheese at home may sound like a fussy ordeal, with different varieties calling for particular enzymes, ripening times, and methods to facilitate the fermentation process. Fresh ricotta, however, is incredibly simple (try this recipe), requiring only two ingredients: milk and lemon. Add a bit of patience, which is something we could all stand to practice, and enjoy.