Good day, all. Looks like Covid Cafe is going to need a menu column devoted solely to stir fries, and with good reason. They're maybe the most nimble way to bring together everything edible in your house. And they're fast.
Though emergency mashed potatoes with salted butter are too
My dear friend Collette goes back to university days and it would take a lot for me to confess to some of the shenanigans we got up to. We cooked back then too, all the time since nobody had money to eat out.
Collette's melange starts with ginger, garlic, and habanero. Woop. Spice it up. Mix leftover beef or turkey with organic brown basmati and add butter (you heard the woman--add butter). Hot sauce and soy sauce come into play as well. Served today over a vegetable selection.
I wish this were waiting for me right now in the kitchen
Yesterday I pulled a giant bag of organic Brussels sprouts from the freezer. I only bought them in the wake of the pandemic and thought we should start using them. I poured some out and they literally looked blue and shivery and otherworldly in the bowl.
Remember that Sex In The City epi when the taxi drivers go on strike and Carrie doesn't know how to use public transportation? That's me with frozen vegetables. I can make anything out of fresh, but these stymied me.
Later after they thawed I quartered them (eew--they were mushy and wet) and roasted them with oil and salt at 450F. They were disgusting. It's clear to me now why so many people dislike this vegetable. They've probably never eaten the fresh version.
Speaking of fresh, we have ramps coming up everywhere
Their onion-y/garlicky flavor is a spring gift. I sliced them and tossed with the Brussels sprouts to roast and the ramps were the best part. Here's more on ramps.
Seeding some arugula in a plastic spinach box. It's a perfect little greenhouse. Try it!
Idle hands are the devil's playground
Our friend Kara teaches origami on TikTok. She can show you a few cool moves. Here's how to make a paper slinky (click here to view in browser).
Come in and sit down, friends, and pour yourself a cup of strong coffee with cream. Today the Covid Cafe is featuring food projects, poetry, and music.
First, check out this photo sent by our friend Jane, who lives north of Tucson. During self-quarantine she's drying barrel cactus seeds.
Jane's story goes like this: Here in the desert, the fishhook barrel cacti have fruited and it's time to harvest. They are abundant and I've decided to collect them, dry the tiny black seeds, and roast them. If you read this website you can also find recipes to make chutney from the fruit.
I'm gonna guess Jane might be the only person we know working on this food project. Talk about making good use of a local resource. Thanks, Jane. I learned something new today.
Like father, like daughter
Remember brother Chris's sourdough from yesterday's cafe menu? Well his daughter Carly, working remotely for Disney in Orlando, sent a photo of her first bread-making effort. What an outcome!
Carly says she'd been cooking frequently day-to-day, but is definitely cooking a lot more now that she's self-isolating.
She used the no-knead approach for this loaf and baked it in a Dutch oven she received as a gift at her bridal
shower last month.
(And yes we made her wear my sister's vintage wedding veil through the entire lunch.)
Let's share a blub for Carly and Rahul's now-postponed wedding, formerly scheduled for a month from
now in the Dominican Republic.
Nicely done!
This is pretty much how every first meal starts for us. We're still following the neurologically protective and nutrient-dense Terry Wahls eating plan (though happily including eggs and dairy because we tolerate them well). At right is some succulent ground lamb from a farm down the road here in SW Michigan.
Chicago Little-Free-Library-Turned-Pantry
"To help our neighbors affected by the COVID-19 crisis, this
Little Free Library is converted to a Little Free Pantry. Take what you
need and if you can, please donate what you can spare!"
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately."
Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help," said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. "Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit- se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him."
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
Every day I wish Covid Cafe were an actual place we could meet for a meal, a cup of coffee, or a cocktail. Our guest chefs today are longtime friend Phyllis and brother Chris, both from the Chicago area. Would you like some hot fresh bread with your eggplant?
Phyllis says: Tonight we cooked this after scrounging our food stocks. We used slices of polenta and a little hot pepper. We were out of basil and garlic but it turned out quite tasty nonetheless. Next problem: I'm out of olive oil!
Good enough to eat
Phyllis followed up to say her neighbors had dropped off chicken, veggies, and olive oil (I'm thinking of all the meals she'll be making with those raw materials). Here's a snap of the recipe.
Brother Chris is a master of the home arts. So is his son, who I think heads up their basement brewery team. Yes, they make (good) beer.
Chris says: We made a stout about three weeks ago and we always save a few cups of the spent grains for making bread or muffins. A wonderful client gave me some of her 30-year-old sourdough starter...
...and thus this loaf was born
Soften some butter and let me in there! Thanks for the tasty submissions, Chris and Phyllis. We have many more to come. Tomorrow we'll look west to Arizona, where a friend is making something with fruiting cactus, which are everywhere.
Join the chefs of Covid Cafe. Send us a picture of whatever you're creating!
Boil slices of ginger, strain, and then nuke a cup of immune-boosting ginger tea with a lemon squeeze whenever you want (for me, that's like three times daily). Do you need some recipes? Click here for Mark Bittman's online resource.
Cousin David is tossing Brussels sprouts with angel hair pasta and the glistening results make our mouth water. Starting with a sautee of garlic and onions in olive oil, he adds a pinch of Korean chili flakes here and a shake of garam masala there.
Clearly, he's working his spice rack. There's umami aplenty in the form of teriyaki and soy. Please pass the napkins!
David uses the same approach for his broccoli stir-fry, Brocs and Basmati. I know there are some well-fed people at his house.
Here's a handy decision tree that can help you decide whether or not to leave your confines. Remember, staying home is a selfless act. It keeps you from transmitting the virus and from getting the virus. It keeps you healthy so you don't clog up the hospital system, which others will need desperately. It keeps you and many people you don't even know safe.
If you're reading in email and ever see a blank box (such as below), just click the headline to go to the online version. Click here for online.
Thank you all for sending photos of food. I met new Canadian friend Maila on our favorite online scrabble site, Lexulous. She responded to our call for new dishes at Covid Cafe with this pic of her Sichuan beef and veggie stir fry, which--admit it--looks good enough to slide off your screen and onto a plate.
Maila's serving this over basmati rice, a comfort food itself, as she and hers shelter in place in Montreal. Thank you Maila. We'll feature more quarantine dishes in the coming days.
If you find you're having moments of discouragement, remember that ordinary people are doing extraordinary things. Check out My Block My Hood My City, which is delivering boxes to seniors with hand sanitizer, supplements, toiletries, and food (volunteer or donate here):
We want to hear about anything you're creating. Send pictures and tell us about it.
Now, take an instructive moment and check out this multi-talented VP and CFO at Deaconess Health in Evansville, Indiana, as she shows how to sew masks for health care workers (honestly, can you imagine a guy CFO doing this? This woman has mad skillz).
For its soothing effects, you could listen to one of our world's great storytellers...
Physical distancing is the WHO's latest directive. People are having zoom dinners and cocktails together over the ethers.
As the Lenten Rose (hellebore) tenaciously pushes up through the leaf mold.
We like to think we're tenacious too. As an old friend used to say: you have to eat. Yeah, but really, the woodpecker suet?
What's going on in your kitchen? Shoot me a photo and tell me about it. The Covid Cafe needs all chefs to step up. In the coming days, we'll share pictures and commentary.
Via Dan Kois at Slate...
Every once in a while, as a reader, you run into one of those books that is just too big
for your mind to entirely take in. It’s not that reading such a book is
upsetting or frustrating, but that it is an experience of continuous
awe, which can be a little exhausting at times. It is really something
to be overwhelmed for hundreds of pages!
You almost wish that the book
would occasionally simply whelm you, but of course that’s all
that most books do, even good books. And in the same way it’s
occasionally clarifying to inch your feet up to the edge of a precipice
and take a good look down, it’s quite bracing to come up against the
hard edge of your own imagination as you try to pursue a visionary
author through the limitless expanse of hers.
