How the pandemic deepened my connection with food
It’s been quite a year. All of us have experienced some degree of loss when it comes to normalcy and sense of time. Others less fortunate have lost jobs, security, and sadly, loved ones. It feels like the longest-shortest year ever. In my home state of Washington, the governor issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 23, 2020. To me that’s the marker of when this all began. While we had no idea what we were really in for, fear of the unknown was real and many of us went into a hunter-gatherer mode. In reality, my immediate circle of friends and family were lucky. We had warm roofs over our heads, running hot water, Wi-Fi, Netflix and access to enough food to fill us up. It may not have always been what we wanted to eat, but we certainly weren’t going hungry. In fact, throughout the stress and monotony, food has brought us together, allowed us to virtually travel, and provided a sense of comfort and connection. For me, this has been especially true.
Throughout this year, while I haven’t been able to entertain or share my food as I would like, I’ve thrown myself into reading about food, cooking and baking. Two books that stand out for me are The Flavor Equation and Why We Cook. I’ve broadened the group of people, cookbooks and social media accounts that I follow to include a more diverse group of culinary talent. I’ve experimented with new ingredients, spices and cuisines. And most of all, food has been a great connector.
About six months into the pandemic, I finally made banana bread. I still use the recipe I got from the house mother at our sorority many moons ago. Lots of melted buttery goodness.
The big turning point in my relationship with food was last April on Easter weekend when my daughter presented the family with a challenge – everyone had to write a blog. This was a thinly veiled attempt to push me to get started on this blog that I’d talked about for years. And it worked – nothing like the support and encouragement (and push) from those who love you most. What you’re reading has become my new source of energy and creative outlet. And it turned out, it was pretty good timing with the pandemic.
Unity through food
Looking back at my own journey through the pandemic, baking and cooking were definitely a consistent highlight. Our daughter came home shortly after the shutdown and ended up staying almost eight weeks. The two of us were partners in crime, donning our masks and armed with hand sanitizer, we’d hit the grocery store. I bought food in quantities like never before. Food was the unifying center of our days. We would strategize our meals, what new dishes we wanted to try and what we were going to bake. We watched Salt Fad Acid Heat on Netflix, attended virtual cooking classes and made #thebiglasagna with Samin Nosrat. I even purchased the Stay Home, Eat Ice Cream sweatshirt from Molly Moon’s to show my support.
One Sunday we drove to Carnation Farms and - what a lovely surprise - they sell Molly Moon’s Melted Chocolate ice cream in individual-sized cartons. A fun pandemic discovery!
Through the ups and downs of the past year, I was peripherally aware of the food trends that were going viral. I totally appreciated Ina Garten’s giant cosmo for one. I didn’t make banana bread until many months into the pandemic. I didn’t have any sourdough starter, but I did make Cheater’s No Knead Sourdough Bread in my Dutch oven and tried focaccia and challah bread. I really wanted to try Dalgona coffee but never did. April was the month that “pancake cereal” went viral but that didn’t necessarily appeal to me. Instead, we gathered all the recipes we’d always talked about making and created a list to conquer while we had this time in isolation together. We turned to Alison Roman and made her Tiny, Salty, Chocolaty Cookies and Lemon Turmeric Tea Cake. My son was home frequently as well, so I cooked more plant-based, gluten-free dishes with him. We used the Instant Pot and he showed us how the sous vide method works. I embraced ghee as my preferred fat and ate more vegetarian meals. I’m already looking back at the unexpected time I had with my adult kids as a very unique and memorable event that brought us all even closer.
Supporting local food establishments
When things started to open up a bit, I was stretched outside my comfort zone to start eating or ordering from restaurants but eventually we patronized several local establishments more for something “to do” than to eat. Marking off an item that had been on my daughter’s bucket list, we walked through the drive-thru of local Huxdotter Coffee. I also purchased food items from several pop-ups and local chefs who found inventive ways to reach consumers.
“Walking through the drive-thru” (with Covid-hair and pre-mandatory mask days) was one adventure my daughter and I shared.
When we finally got restless and needed to go somewhere, my husband drove us into Seattle to look for signs of human life. On this sunny May day, Pike Place Market—the pulse of the city and normally a hubbub of between 20,000 and 40,000 daily visitors—was hauntingly empty. Only one produce stand was open, only about half a dozen people were in the streets, and the only other people we saw were the fromagers busy at work inside Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. Vendors were heavily impacted and had to find new ways to distribute their produce, flowers and seafood.
On Cinco de Mayo, we ordered food from Mexican restaurant Rio Bravo. When I went to pick up the food, there were cars parked everywhere with masked people waiting for their orders. The entire community had shown up to support this small Mexican restaurant, whose owner had taken to Facebook to connect with people. I also purchased food items from several pop-ups – Seattle restaurants who took their cuisine out to the suburbs. From summer through early fall, we had access to wonderful fruits and veggies from local farms and I also belonged to the Frisky Girl Farm CSA program where I picked up fresh veggies weekly.
Food as comfort
Summer seemed to give us a much-needed reprieve from reality. But with colder weather came retreating back inside and turning to comfort food as the pandemic weighed heavily on us. Fall traditionally makes me feel like cooking anyhow, and Cookbooktober gave me lots of new cookbooks to try. I attended several virtual author talks arranged by Seattle-based Book Larder. What I enjoyed most about these was connecting with fellow foodies and getting to know the authors. I spent time making soups and stews and baking from Snacking Cakes and 100 Cookies. November brought smaller, non-traditional Thanksgivings. I used the opportunity to make my first spatchcocked turkey and try some new side dishes. With the four of us under one roof during the holidays, we again tried lots of new recipes and made more food memories. November is when hot chocolate bombs became popular. December and cold weather brought lazy breakfasts and more baking, and then a new year was upon us, hard to believe we were almost a year into the global pandemic.
So far 2021 has brought food trends including the viral TikTok tortilla wrap hack and feta pasta. I had to try the tortilla hack. The idea is simple. Instead of rolling a burrito-like wrap, you divide a large tortilla into quarters, fill each quarter with a different ingredient, fold it to form a neat triangle, and brown it in a pan or press in a panini maker. I used this to reinvent the wrap that was my son’s (coveted by jealous classmates) elementary and middle-school lunchtime staple: thinly sliced turkey breast, grated Tillamook cheddar cheese, salsa (usually homemade from The Salsa Man in Mesa, Arizona) and avocado slices or guacamole. Make sure the cheese is on one of the outside sides when folded so it will melt easily.
My tortilla wrap turned into a tortilla triangle.
Salsa Man’s Salsa
This recipe came from my dad, who, unrelated to Covid, I sadly lost this year. He “procured” the recipe when purchasing a hand-operated salsa maker from the “salsa man” at the Apache Junction flea market. This salsa will always make me think of my Dad and was just about the only thing I saw him make in the kitchen.
Ingredients:
1/2 orange 1/2 Tbsp. salt
2 cloves garlic 3 Roma tomatoes
Thumb sized sprig cilantro 1/4 medium onion
1/2 small jalapeño 1/4 oz. lime juice
Here are the instructions using the Salsa Maker, but you can use a blender, food processor or Magic Bullet.) Start by squeezing ½ orange into the bowl of your machine using the juicing attachment. Add the chopping blade to your machine and add all the ingredients in order listed above. Screw the top of the machine on and begin turning the handle in a clockwise motion occasionally turning the handle backwards (this pulls the larger pieces from the top layer to the bottom giving you a uniform cut). Turning your handle fast will give you a fine textured salsa and turning the handle slow will give you a chunky salsa.
Reflecting on my time in the kitchen
More than ever, my kitchen has been a place of joy and contentment. Reflecting on the past year, the kitchen transformed into my headquarters. I’ve gone there to create, to work on new recipes, feed and nourish my family, stress bake, and sometimes just to be alone. Some days baking in silence was best and other days, turning up the tunes and singing while I cooked was what the doctor ordered. There’s something very satisfying about creating with your hands and your heart, feeding others and giving of yourself. At its very basic, food brings joy and is the great unifier.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Lindsay Gardner’s recently released book called Why We Cook:
“Food is everywhere. It penetrates everything – our politics, sociology, anthropology. It’s the way we nurture ourselves, our family, our friends. It’s the way we entertain, the way we socialize. It’s the way we connect with others, the way we explain our culture, celebrate our milestones. And there are always so many more delicious things to eat … Food is a unifer.”
--Gail Simmons, culinary expert, television personality, cofounder of Bumble Pie Productions and food writer New York, NY
