Cooking in the Time of COVID-19

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...