Covid-19 Discussions and Stories

[aaronatthedoublef]

I spent five minutes talking to a friend before I realized who it was. Of course this sometimes happens to me without masks...

I miss giving food to friends but I still have plenty of family to eat my stuff. Thank goodness for that.

While it's not as good as being together lots of people here are having virtual happy hours. I know BA suggested a virtual pizza party.

And people here are also starting to have small gatherings where everyone is outside and everyone stays six to 10 feet apart. I suspect there will be more of that as the weather warms.

[BakerAunt]

Actually, Chocomouse suggested the virtual pizza party, and I agreed with her. Maybe we could coordinate it with Aaron's weekly pizza extravaganza. I've been wanting to make a thin-crust pizza, probably just for me for lunches, as my husband prefers the thick-crust. I can see one with artichoke hearts, mozzarella, some onion, mushrooms, and maybe some sliced black olives. (You can tell that my husband won't be eating this one!)

When we moved from Texas to Indiana, I lost the people at the office and at church for whom I baked. Only about three of the houses on this stretch of road are permanently occupied year round. Other than mailing cookies to my sister and her twin daughters, I've had to wait for my stepchildren to visit, so that I can spoil them with their favorite treats. I miss the social interaction that I had at work and have yet to find some groups here. The community here at Nebraska Kitchen has been my one point of social continuity.

[Mike Nolan]

The Wall Street Journal has an article that says the five stages of isolation grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and banana bread.

Google says banana bread recipes are the #1 recipe search term right now, all those people who hoarded bananas are looking for things to do with those now-brown bananas.

[skeptic7]

I miss martial arts and being able to foist extra baked goods on fellow participants. This is especially bad for the more calorie laden baked goods, I can eat breads by myself happily but really feel happier being able to share cookies and cakes and buns with other people. I'm trying to design a cherry pizza with canned Trader Joes cherries and ricotta cheese, but there won't be anyone to help me eat it, and to admire my creativity,

[BakerAunt]

Banana bread has been big since the start of the pandemic, I think because it's considered an easy recipe, and people associate it with the families in which they grew up, so it's comforting. My husband goes through banana so fast that it is rare for me to have any with which to bake. I'd like to bake that buckwheat banana bread again.

Skeptic--will the crust be like a sugar cookie or more of a sweet dough?

[skeptic7]

Its going to be a slightly sweet bread dough, I hope for medium thick pan pizza not as sweet or as rich as a Danish, with ricotta cheese along the edges and the Cherries in the center, with the juices thickened and sweetened to a jammy consistency. I don't want juice to run off the edges. I think I'll put just a bit of cardamon in the cherries just to be wierd.

[Italiancook]

I probably don't have the technology to participate in a virtual pizza party. Remember, I've had a cell phone only a short time and don't know how to use it's features.

[S_Wirth]

Italiancook...I am in the same boat with you on cell phones. Last year in May, I had to get a new phone to work on the new networks so I got an iPhone. I know how to answer a call but that is the extent of it. I have another cell phone I have to replace in July as my old smart phone will not work much longer on the new networks. I never mastered that one either.

I keep the two cell phones so if we get stranded with a bad storm or similar event, I can call our power company or other assistance we might need if our landline service is out of commission. I keep both charged well so they'd last a good while if services were to be down several days.

My husband knows less that I do about this issue so we are really a pair.

I looked online for my iPhone manual and it has 600 some pages so it seemed overwhelming to begin with.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got an iPhone 8 and it has more options that the New York Cocoa Exchange. I probably only know a small fraction of them.

I did discover you can change what voice Siri uses, I've got a female voice with an English accent. For a while I had it set to give me all the system messages in French.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I am learning iPhones as my team supports a few thousand. BTW, there is a security bug in iOS mail that is pretty serious. We just shut off access to it and replaced it with Outlook for iOS. Not sure if Outlook is the best client but we had to do this in a hurry and it's what we know and already support on PCs.

For a virtual pizza party you would probably use your PC but you would need a PC with a webcam.

My brothers and I had a virtual seder for Passover and it was the first time we've managed to have all our families together. One brother said it was the first time he has had a seder with his son since high school. My book club had a virtual meeting last week. Both were great and welcome relief from hanging out at home.

[BakerAunt]

Most laptops these days have a built in camera. My laptop is probably about seven years old, and it has one. We've been able to Skype with my stepchildren, and my husband participated in a dissertation defense via Skype.

I'm not sure how Skype differs from Zoom, with which I'm not familiar.

[RiversideLen]

I was able to get a 2 pound bag of King Arthur AP flour and a 5 pound bag of organic white whole wheat from Whole Foods today. Looks like flour is starting to trickle in to the supply line. I'll be happy when KAF has all their flours on the website, then I'll know things are returning to normal.

[BakerAunt]

My order from KAF arrived on Friday. It was not a flour order but a few items that I bought in order to use my Bakers Bucks.

I agree, Len that it would be nice to see flour at the KAF site again. It's not sold at the one store in my town, and we are avoiding the larger town north of us. With the BRM order I got last week, I should be able to hold out for a while. Gold Medal Unbleached is showing up at the local grocery store.

[BakerAunt]

I noticed that Bob's Red Mill had bags of bread flour, so I ordered two, as well as more steel-cut oats, a small bag of chickpea flour (might as well, since the shipping would be the same.), and two bags of pearl barley.

I am looking forward to the day when I can go back to looking for best prices rather than focusing on buying in the brief window when items are available, but for now, I know that I won't run out of bread flour as soon as I feared.

[Italiancook]

I agree with you, BakerAunt, I'm also looking forward to comparing prices again. I also long for the days I can again find what I want in stores locally so I don't have to pay shipping costs. Bleach is scarce here. I happened onto a website with bleach one afternoon and paid almost $15.00 to have ONE bottle of Clorox bleach delivered!!! But Clorox wipes are out everywhere, and bleach with water makes a disinfectant.

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