A year since mid-March
It's exactly a year since I realized shit was.... bad
Well, here we are, it’s been exactly a year since things changed, for me and noah at least. I guess this means it’s been about a year since we got COVID, although who knows. Noah and I like to debate where we got COVID, but we will never know for sure. Was it Noah, on his work trip to Baton Rouge that he got back from on March 12th, or was it me, crammed into a room with 50 other people (not a single mask in sight, but lots of hand sanitizer) for participatory budgeting training, on March 11th?
It’s been a year since I emailed to say “I probably shouldn’t travel for an interview.”
It’s been a year and four days since I sent probably my most ill-advised email ever.
Seriously! March 10th I was like “ehhhh fuck it,” and March 14th I was like “hm maybe no travel?” I share these emails to point out how wildly out of touch I was in early March. I think it’s easy for me to think that I knew more than I did, was more right than I was.
I had been listening to the BBC global news podcast as they had talked about a respiratory infection in Wuhan since before the new year, and I had listened to my friends on WhatsApp in northern Italy as everything got shut down there in February. I kept telling myself that I knew what was coming: a full shutdown, for a few weeks, and then it would be better. I told my friends in the city that they should make sure they had a month of medications, because there would be terrible lines at the pharmacy, but I still had this faith that if there needed to be a shutdown, the CDC would say that. I assumed that if we needed to wear masks, the CDC would tell us that.
I don’t think I realized how much trust I had in the government, in the CDC, until April or May, when I realized it was nothing but racism against East Asian countries that had lead the government to say “actually masks are BAD” even as countries where people where wearing masks didn’t have fucking morgue trucks in the streets, didn’t have the constant sound of sirens in their cities. I felt that I had no faith whatsoever in the Governor, but I realized later that I must have had some, because I had assumed that surely, surely, if shutting down the city would save lives, that he would have done it.
It is easy for me now, a year later to think that I knew something, that I was right about anything, that I had any degree of foresight. But that’s not true. I walked around my neighborhood when I was almost certainly sick with covid because it was March 23rd, and I had no idea what the fuck was happening. I felt really really winded after I carried the cat litter up the stairs, and sure, it was weird that I couldn’t catch my breath for a half an hour after that, but it couldn’t be COVID. It was March 24th and I was sleeping for hours in the middle of every day, but it couldn’t be COVID, it was only when Passover came, and I could not smell or taste the horseradish on the plate that I realized that it was definitely, without a doubt, COVID. I had taken precautions before that, Noah and I had been wholly isolated for two weeks, since we first started coughing, but we started coughing after the things that I now know are symptoms began. When we first started quarantining, for real, it felt absurd. It felt like hypochondria, it felt like attention seeking to ask for people to get deliveries for me, to pick up groceries, or the laundry. Looking back, I know that I should have done it much sooner.
Reader, in case you were concerned, last year the pandemic did stop us from cramming anyone at all into our apartment for Passover, and this year, the same thing will happen. Noah and I were lucky to get vaccines a bit early, because I know somebody who knows somebody (an early vaccine is the best possible advertisement for doing grocery deliveries for old ladies), but despite knowing that we will be fully vaccinated by the middle of Pesach, our friends will not be, so yet again, we will be spending the holiday trying to make Passover feel real, and important and good with just the two of us.
I love Passover, because it combines many of my favorite things (from before): cooking a lot, having my friends over for dinner, and forcing my friends to engage in a lengthy ritual (I’ve only been able to do 1/3 for the last year, which is why so many of my friends have seen CATS (2019) numerous times during the pandemic).
Last year I ended our Haggadah with this:
As the tradition says, "Ha-sha-tah ha-kha; I'sha-nah ha-ba-ah b'ar-ah d'yis-ra-el. This year we celebrate here, but next year we hope to celebrate in the land of Israel." This year we celebrate in our homes and apartments, this year we celebrate apart from each other, next year we hope to celebrate together.
I thought, even when Noah and I were writing our Haggadah together, that surely this would be a sentimental statement, and that soon, soon, soon we would be together again.
This year we will celebrate in our homes and apartments, but next year, we hope to celebrate together once more.
This is cooking lite, because as everyone knows, COOKING SUCKS FOREVER NOW, but noah and I do KFP, and so it always requires a bit more planning than the average week. Here are some of what we will be making, or some general recommendations for you (and as always…. breakfast……).
For breakfast:
This is the hardest part. I eat so many oats. I do not like having to drink almond milk for a week, but hey, to suffer is the point! I hate passover breakfast the most, especially now because COVID weirdly destroyed my taste for apples, and I used to just eat apples with peanut butter for passover breakfast, if you still like apples, just fucking eat that and be done with it. (Sometimes I’d spice things up with apples and cheddar.) Passover is a good time to do smoothies and shit.
For Big Meals:
Bejeweled rice - This is always a hit when we have seders that people come to, but it’s good regardless. The trick to making this very good is to use more seasonings that it calls for, because it’s a bon appetit recipe, and to soak the dried cherries to rehydrate them. It can be reheated in the oven with a bit of veg stock for a few days after you make it, but not more than 2, so size the rice quantity down accordingly.
Latke waffles (with candied salmon and cream cheese) - great because it can also be breakfast on the weekend.
Obviously the classic pesach thing is to just eat pounds of potatoes. Something like crispy roast potatoes with pesto would be good. Noah and I were eating a LOT of bread cheese and fried halloumi at the beginning of the pandemic, that would go really well with this, but tbh I’m not sure if I can eat bread cheese without the association of rationing it carefully into serving sizes because we were so afraid of running out, because there was nothing in the stores and shopping was so stressful and hard.
The great thing about not technically being jewish is that I have absolutely no issues with kitnyot, and noah and I primarily eat rice on a daily basis anyway so this year I don’t expect much change in our eating overall, except that I will get wheat-free tamari to use instead of our regular rotation of soy sauces.
I have been absolutely loving this recipe recently for Cantonese steamed fish, from the Woks of Life. (with GF tamari, it is KFP, and I suppose you could have it with something… other than rice, if you wanted, I however, will have it with rice, because I love myself.)
Also, if you want noodles, Japchae is KFP. I don’t eat beef, so I like to press a piece of tofu for aaaages, and then slice it and fry it. You could do whatever, idk, but Japchae needs some sort of protien otherwise you will be quite hungry. I do a variation of Maangchi’s recipe, because I can’t eat mushrooms and don’t love bell peppers, but this was the first link I pulled, and I like her other recipes.
For Dessert:
Coconut Macaroons - these are so good. I used to always make pavlova for the seder nights, but a pavlova is no good for two people. These are amazing for two people, they last for ages and they’re really good. I think they’d easily work with a vegan egg white replacer.
It’s been such a year. If you’re reading this, you’ve survived it, which sounds like a joke, but doesn’t feel like one.
Survival is not a joke, and especially after the last year. I love your posts usually, and this one especially. Be well, your auntie