Eating Better

Before the pandemic, my feelings about restaurateurs were pretty much like my feelings about highly paid professional athletes and celebrities. Considering the huge markup on food and service, the obscene markup on liquor and alcoholic beverages at restaurants, I really had very little sympathy for restaurateurs who needed to close their businesses. But the pandemic has put so many things in a different light. While my feelings about highly paid athletes and celebrities remains the same, I've learned to have a new respect for restauranteurs, especially those who own mom-and-pop establishments. My wife and I needed to do a couple of quick errands this morning, and in our travels we noticed that two of our favorite restaurants had closed for good. One was part of a chain, the other was independently owned. We'd  gone to each restaurant numerous times over the last few years, and we got to know their menu, some of their service staff, and the philosophies that shaped t...

Oh my, another off topic blog post. I Sometimes wonder, during the pandemic, what it is that people will find when they come out from their caves and their homes. I respect and admire all the legislators for wanting to save as many lives as possible. Given the same circumstances, I'd want to do the same thing. We have to ask ourselves, if what's left after we come out of our caves is worth having. If we wait too much longer, we will be leaving our homes to enter a world that is very much third-world. Empty stores, streets littered with trash that hasn't been picked up, very much like the streets of New York and Washington DC, and the games Division and Division. It's so sad. The idea that people have remained in their homes and in their caves, only to come out into the daylight to find absolutely nothing. Powers that be don't get America back to work, we will find out that's what's coming won't be worth coming back to.

This, like several others in this blog, is not strictly on topic. It's not about eating healthy, as much as it is being healthy. Several days ago, I was having a lot of trouble synchronizing my wrist device, with the cloud and with the app on my mobile phone. The reason? Probably a decreased bandwidth attributable to everyone staying home and using their home internet. But that's not what I want to talk about. Disgusted with trying to synchronize my wrist device, I just decided to remove it. My Fitbit Inspire is now in a drawer somewhere. My first reaction, as you can imagine, was the same as someone who has left a cell phone home, or in the words and thoughts of people of my generation somebody who has left their wrist watch at home. There's an immediate feeling of incompleteness, a feeling that you're missing something that you should have with you. A necessity. Something like your wallet. Something like your passport. But after that passed, it was almost liberating. ...

 those who are devotees of the dry martini will tell you anytime they are asked, and many times when they are not, how much they enjoy this singularly classic adult beverage. Far beyond the scope of this blog, Martini culture would take far too long to describe in its entirety. But those who enjoy juniper in gin, and the botanicals in dry vermouth in a wonderful icy cold concoction become convinced. Herein lies the problem. Martini culture, as enjoyable as it is, has been plagued for many years by the notion that there is one and only one perfect martini. In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. As I often tell people when asked about the right wine to serve with a certain meal, my response is that the best wine is the one you like. In much the same way, the best martini is the one you like. First, there is the shaking vs. stirring controversy. No controversy at all! You shake if you want a colder Martini that's more concentrated, and you stir if you w...

Okay, so we eat tofu.  And we like it.  Yes, we LIKE it.  Sure, I know that tofu is a source of humor, for most Americans.  It's associated with what used to be called "tree huggers," like Ewell Gibbons. Remember him? The environmentalist who endorsed a certain breakfast cereal, because it reminded him of wild hickory nuts.  But rather than joke about tofu, we enjoy it.  Mostly, we fry it on a lightly oiled griddle, and it gets crispy on the outside and stays creamy on the inside.  It DOES, as the sources say, have a mild, nutlike flavor.  And when added to things like soups, stews and stir fries, it will pick up (and therefore) spread the flavors already in the pan/pot.  We even mash it in, with canned tuna and mayonnaise, to give the resulting tuna salad greater volume, while providing plant protein.  I could go on. . . but I won't.  This opening paragraph was to give you an idea that, unlike many Americans, we enjoy tofu. So wh...

Many years ago, and I can say that, because I'm old enough, parents and homeowners and families had pantries or larders, filled to the brim. Bad weather and uncertain transportation made it a necessity, because families couldn't always get out to the store to purchase food. So pantries were filled with things like dry rice, pasta, flour and yeast to make bread, dry beans, canned fish, and canned vegetables. Here it is, 2020, and we're in a time of crisis. A trip to the store will show you shelves that are empty. But empty of what? Aside from the obvious cleaning products and paper products, some of the biggest deficiencies are areas such as canned soups and frozen pizzas. At the age of 74, I'm old enough to remember the days when a pot of soup was one of the easiest things to whip up, from things in one's pantry. The famous Italian dish pasta e fagioli was a standard, right out of the pantry. A can of broth, dried beans, canned tomatoes, and some pasta. All househol...

Looking at news reports recently, make me wonder what year this is. The world is significantly affected buy a disease, a contagious one. Meetings all around the world are hunkered down in their homes, afraid to come out, or told not to come out. Shelves in the grocery stores can be empty. People wear masks and sometimes gloves to do everyday tasks such as grocery shopping. Most stores and businesses are shuttered. It says to me, that I'm in some sort of Time Warp. It's either centuries earlier, and we are protecting ourselves from the plague. Or, it's far into the future, with a different reality than the one I remember. Either way, this whole covid 19 experience and it's a company in pandemic are certainly a culture and time shock to everyone.