Skip to main content

Intro: Cooking in the Time of COVID-19

In March 2020, a new pandemic arrived in Santa Barbara, CA: COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus. The arrival was sudden. Just a couple of weeks after my students and I had talked about the lack of cases, UC Santa Barbara moved all classes online for the next three months. As a music professor-in-training, that move carried quite a few complications for my immediate and future life. At the start of spring quarter, I must now teach my students through a computer program. I will probably not physically see them again for a long time, a fact that fills me with sadness.


But the changes to my own life are pretty small, compared to the repercussions for everyone else. Many students were told to leave for break, and not return. A lot of them won't have a last quarter at UCSB before graduating. Finding the essentials - pasta, rice, and toilet paper, most notably - is proving pretty tricky. And though the Internet is coming into its own keeping people connected, nothing can replace being in the physical presence of students, friends, and family. "Dark and difficult times lie ahead," indeed.

However, certain things have stayed the same. One of them is a fundamental human need: food and cooking. I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes. So, being in quarantine/virtual for the foreseeable future has a surprise silver lining. I have time to experiment even more with new foods and flavors. Plus, there is now time for reflection on food and its role in our lives. More than ever, I see food as a form of structure, a method of self-care, and a link to our human connections.

This blog is meant to send those thoughts out into a troubled world. In addition, I will be putting the recipe for the thing I/I and friends have made into the post. I hope that my blog will bring a smile to your face, and maybe even some good food to your stomach. :)

Comments

  1. C VanchellaMarch 27, 2020 at 8:24 PM

    Looking forward to your recipes and insights.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 陈缇March 28, 2020 at 7:42 AM

    So glad to see you are safe and being so positive! Can't wait to read your next blog post. Stay healthy :) - Yuna

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(Responsibly) Conquer Your Fears

Many folks have compared COVID-19 to probably the scariest bacterium I can think of: Yersinia pestis . Its other name is “the plague.” The Black Death of 1347-1352 is the hands-down winner of my Worst Time to Be Alive Award. Anywhere between ⅓ and ⅔ of Europe, and just shy of 25% of the world’s population - you heard that right, the world - died as a result of the Black Death. It’s no wonder a lot of folks then thought they’d reached the End Times. Speaks for itself, I think. But here’s the thing. The mid-1300s weren’t the End Times, we recovered, and humanity learned some valuable lessons from the Black Death. The ones that strike me most live on in danse macabre art. These art pieces (including music! ) show us that death is everyone’s lifelong companion, and can come calling no matter your age or social standing. That might be a scary thought at face value. The fact that people started representing that fear post-Black Death suggests, to me, that they’re confronting the fea...
4 comments
Read more

Healthy Living

My friend Liza said something very appropriate at the pandemic’s beginning. She said, “Self-care is not optional anymore.” I think that’s true, in whatever form self-care takes for a particular person. The occasional face mask or bath, exercise, daily check-ins with friends...I define self-care in my own head as “any pleasant activity that makes you feel calm, less stressed, or good about yourself.” Some of my own favorite self-care activities include going outside for a walk, reading a good/favorite book, and baths with a nice face mask. But there’s a specific self-care thing I do that has become much more important these days: healthy cooking. Cooking in general, as this blog attests, is one of my own ways of self-care. But let’s be honest: not everything I make leaves me feeling exactly healthy afterwards. For example, the Red Lobster biscuits I made are wonderful, but after actually trying them, I have classified them as a very occasional treat! Healthy recipes, on the othe...
4 comments
Read more

Words/Food With Friends: A Book Review

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 ...
2 comments
Read more