My COVID-19 journal

Back in early October, Sam Sifton, the food editor of the New York Times newspaper, said that when the lockdown began he wished he'd recorded the meals he was cooking in a notebook: 

"It'd be great to look back on the months of experimentation and freestyle cooking, on the dishes that became standbys, on the once-in-a-blue-moon extravagances, the triumphs, the failures. I think that could have been the sort of thing to preserve, a piece of personal history, something to help remind me of the joys and frustrations of this extraordinary and difficult time.

Instead, I've only got memories, fragmenting already."

. . .

Guess what, Sam? I did start keeping track of what I was cooking. Not right at the start, but after the first couple of weeks, I decided to keep track of what we had for dinner as a kind of domestic journal. This was not that big of a stretch as I have been keeping journals (above) filled with photos and notes about our dinners and parties going back to 1984. I hoped that this pandemic note-taking would spark me into trying some new recipes and to being a bit more inventive.  

I made a great pasta dish based on a Pinterest photo. I trolled the NYTimes food section and Food 52. I pulled new and old cookbooks off the shelf. I ended these COVID-19 dinner notations on June 30th; three months after I began keeping track. It was obvious by then that home cooking was not something we were going to be able to abandon anytime soon.

Looking at what we ate in those early months, we tried a few new things but mostly we ate the usual: Pasta with white clam sauce, stew, home made chicken noodle soup, something from the grill. There were salads of every kind: mixed market greens, Thai chicken, chicken curry, mixed beans, lentil combos and wild rice with fruit and veg. And yes, there were hot dogs, tuna fish sandwiches and mac and cheese.

By autumn, I was bored with our menus and made a real effort to try some new dishes. Most of them were flavorful hits that we'll be eating again and again:

Salmon with fennel, bell pepper and black olives (Martha / my version above)

Avocado, black bean and pineapple salad with lime cilantro dressing (Smitten Kitchen Every Day)

Smokey tomato and red pepper soup with white beans (Food 52) 

Beet and tomato salad (NYTimes)

Ropa Vega (a fabulous Cuban dish from the NYTimes)

Thai green curry shrimp linguine (another Martha)

I was on a roll until I rolled off. I haven't tried anything new in a month or more. The change in the weather and the coming holidays home alone have thrown me a curve. Once I re-adjust to the new reality yet again, I'm sure I'll be ready for more kitchen experiments. Truth be told, if it was not for the pandemic, I would not be spending so much time at home. Nor would the idea of spending that time in the kitchen be as enticing as it has proved. 

Comments

[Kris P]

Yum! I just finished breakfast and your post still made me hungry - and a little envious. With my husband's extreme dietary restrictions, our weekly meals have been much the same for years.

[Linda Brazill]

KRIS — Dietary issues are such a serious problem and one that has broad effects.  We are lucky those are not an issue for us most of the time.My husband has some food-related problems, but nothing that seems too serious. Neither he nor the docs can quite figure out the cause which is frustrating however. 

[Barbara H.]

Good for you, Linda. Kind of wish I had kept just a regular journal but it would have been kind of boring to read, I think. Didn't think it would be going on this long and now who know when it will end.

[Linda Brazill]

BARBARA — Our State Historical Society asked people to keep COVID journals. They could be handwritten, photos, digita,l whatever. At first I thought that would be a good idea. Then I realized I did not want to have to pay that much attention to everything that was going on around me. Just totally depressed me. Then I thought of recording our dinners based on something a British cookbook author did. Short term and fun. 

At the start of the Civil War our State Historical Society handed out journals to Wisconsin soldiers to write down their experiences. As a result they have an incredible collection of first-hand material for historians. 

[Lisa at Greenbow]

I journal some but not about food. Maybe I would pay more attention to what I eat if I journaled about it. I rarely mention CV either. It has put such a squash on life. Not near as bad as the past 4 years. I hope things improve soon. Everything.

[Lisa at Greenbow]

P.S. I am very curious about your hand made sketchbooks. ???