Cooking in the Time of COVID-19

Let’s be honest: Our summer activities are a bit limited. Going to the beach or other public places (that are open) is a little bit tricky, as is travel out of town. Nevertheless, I think people are still able to enjoy the summer. Two weeks ago on a walk I spied several groups of people all properly distanced from each other at Coal Oil Point. This is a first, and suggests to me we’re all taking things a little more seriously than before. Small steps! Social distancing on the beach. But even with limited summer activities, there remains one good way to celebrate the season. Fresh produce!!! As I said in my spring rolls post, one of my favorite things about summer here is the arrival of things like berries and tomatoes. It’s a great season to be a jam-maker. My parents and I have also picked up several treats from local farmstands, including peaches and a pound of fresh green beans for me. I love to cook with very fresh, in-season stuff; we’re very lucky here in California to have goo...

So a few months ago, I made knock-off Red Lobster biscuits. It was my first baking project since the Great Nutella Cake Disaster of 2018 (pan size is important). It was also my first baking success in a long, long time, and emboldened me to try something a little more complicated next time. I figured that part of the reason I had success was because I didn’t actually make the biscuit dough myself. So, something that involved making my own dough seemed a good next step. After some thinking, I decided on focaccia bread in May. Italian, delicious, and by all accounts, reasonably hard to mess up. The project did NOT begin auspiciously. The yeast that I ordered from Amazon, because the stores were out, took almost a month to arrive. But it did get here eventually...only after yeast had returned to the store and I’d bought more. (I now have yeast for probably the next twenty years.) I also couldn’t seem to find the right day to make the bread. Something kept coming up and pushing it off. ...

I’ve been listening to George Harrison a lot these days. At first glance, this is not anything out of the ordinary for me. At the end of May, I finished a dissertation chapter draft dealing with Indian music’s influence in his Beatles songs. I received a beautiful vinyl edition of All Things Must Pass for my birthday. And I do like to listen to the Beatles, as a band, every once in a while and just listen. I enjoy the music without analyzing or scheming what I’m going to say. I find it a good anti-dissertation weariness tactic. Not that I’d get tired of the Beatles, ever - I haven’t for the past thirteen years - but I like to make sure. But I’ve also found myself listening back to George in particular on my own time. He’s my favorite Beatle, for a lot of reasons. His solo music is the first Beatles/Beatles-adjacent music I can remember, singing along to our Best of Dark Horse CD on long car drives. I learned to play the guitar because I thought it would help me understand why G...

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately, for my own enjoyment as well as studies. One of those enjoyment books was A Sampling of Life, One Taste at a Time: A Food Memoir , which my college friend Martha Wallace published this year (available on Amazon here! ). What a wonderful, and tasty, read! The book focuses on both events from Martha’s life, and the recipes connected to her memories. It spans many locations, from Georgia to Africa and Spain, and memories sweet, salty, and bitter. Me and Martha outside of Oviedo, 2014 From a technical perspective, one of my favorite things about Martha’s book is its imagery. When she describes her grandfather’s garden, I smell the flowers and taste the vegetables. I can visualize her family barbecue, her and her sons baking in the kitchen. As a writer myself, I know that imagery and description are hard to get right. Just the correct amount of detail is needed: too much, and you lose the reader in the weeds; too little, and no one can ...

Summer is upon us, and even if we can’t do as much as usual, that’s no excuse not to celebrate! One of my very favorite parts of summer is that there’s fresh produce everywhere. SO MUCH. A lot of my favorite fruits, mostly berries and tomatoes, are in season. I can break out fun cold pasta salads I love, that don’t quite fit the winter vibe. And, grilling season returns, always cause for celebration in my house! This year, my first official summery dish was one I learned to make recently: Vietnamese-style spring rolls. I’ve heard differing opinions as to what exactly constitutes a spring roll, but the ones I made are of the unfried variety. I love these rolls as a summer dish, because they’re both cold and take full advantage of the fresh produce coming into season. But I’d always been a little intimidated at the thought of making them. They always seemed complicated, with their see-through wraps, curled shrimps, and colorful leafy fillings. Assembly station But I got a ple...

Generally, on this blog, I like to try and talk about the positive in the current situation. But let’s be real: it can sometimes be hard to stay positive. Especially in light of recent reopenings, and people insisting that life go back to normal when we are NOT ready to do so. COVID-19 has not gone anywhere; it’s just biding its time. I will not be at all surprised if there is another frightening spike in the next month or so, because we let our guards down too soon. Add to that the horrific murders of multiple innocent African-Americans, and the justified civil unrest that has resulted, and it can be hard to see the good in the world. A perennial favorite for finals season, but also most of us nowadays. But I started feeling a little down a couple weeks ago, over something completely unrelated. One of my students, unfortunately, had to withdraw from school for pandemic-related reasons. The same week, two more of my students had family emergencies that had them (and me) under s...