I stand chastened...

The supermarket - the choice is yours.  Tins or Fresh.

​I stand before you chastened. My comments in the post of 1/1/2020 mocked the over-use of hand sanitisers and house sprays. I talked of  "lightening up"  on the germ front, I suggested kids get into the dirt and play. Now, we are in lockdown, separated from each other, hounded by the universal spread of this rogue virus.  We follow our daily dose of media because it all seems simply incomprehensible (and heart breaking). I'm taking the cautions seriously.

Personally, I have to admit, I'm fine.  I don't associate boredom with solitude. The playwright Tom Stoppard is enjoying the peace, he says. "This is the life I’ve always wanted — social distancing without social disapproval".

I'm carefully avoiding the panic shopping, in fact it's fascinatingly humorous. Loo paper, bottled water, pasta (of that more later) leave behind mounds of fresh fruit and vegetables. Butchers hold a healthy variety of good meat, fish is still swimming in the ocean and being caught. What are these panickers eating? There might be a shortage of latex gloves but there's no shortage of good, local food.

To paraphrase our government -
​"Together, we can cook our way through this."
(Can we ask the media to stop paraphrasing - " Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985) unless they've read the book?")

Waiting is what we have at the moment, and if you need variety and innovation in your cooking, check the site “ckbk” (https://www.ckbk.com). It's offering 30 days free subscription. 

“ckbk” is a digital collection of cook books, brought together through the expert advice of world-class chefs and food writers (including yours truly), sourced worldwide. It even ranks the most essential books of all time.  See their list - 1000 top cook books and the list continues to grow. (And who doesn't love a list?) Incidentally, according to their poll,  (https://app.1000cookbooks.com/books) the list begins as follows...

#1  Mastering the Art of French Cooking    Julia Child
#2   Nose to Tail Eating                                    Fergus Hendersen
#3  The French Laundry Cookbook             Thomas Keller
#4  Larousse Gastronomique                        Prosper Montagné
#5  French Provincial Cooking                      Elizabeth David
#6  White Heat                                                  Marco Pierre White  
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Subscribers get unlimited access to the complete content of every book. 

Left: Rosemary's perfect loaf
Friends are cooking.  Most of all, they’re baking and preserving even though bread, jams and chutneys are not part of the stockpilers' booty.  People who once boasted they were too busy (inferring not too subtly, that they were above it all, with better things to do) are making not only dinner but interesting breakfasts (which they now have time to eat) and are finding they are quite good at it.

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So, if baking is to be your "boredom filler" of choice, take the humble Pavlova to new heights with Lorraine Elliot's blog, nicely named "Not Quite Nigella".

You'll never turn off the oven.

https://www.notquitenigella.com
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And treat yourself to the enthusiasm of  young Gallic cutie Alex - The French Guy. 
Random YouTubes will find him exploring methodically (and with a laugh) anything from pasta to pommes de terre in his workshop or cycling around Paris.
He's just finished a three part series on the perfect meatball, (just what you've always needed). 
​https://alex meatball youtube


His fridge magnets sold out too quickly, where he sensibly reminded us...

• Don't just be good, be BUTTER.
• Every day, just get BUTTER and BUTTER.

​So finally, could self-isolating be just another name for self-improving?
Love you to comment. Click the very, very small "comments" below 👇.

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