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During the pandemic, has anything changed in how you get food, prepare it, or eat it?
Food has become more casual. There seems to be less desire to spend as much time preparing meals. I guess my enthusiasm has diminished. One upside however is that I am making more bread than usual and sharing it with family and friends. I have made bread for years, the traditional way, a bowl to mix the ingredients in and kneading and shaping by hand. No mixer or bread machine. I started years ago after reading an article on stress and how bread making was recommended to women in Britain in WWII as a way to reduce stress during the blitz. It is a good stress reliever, especially the kneading and punching of the dough. The end result is rewarding and there is nothing better than fresh bread out of the oven. I have even got grandkids over to help on occasion. They love to punch the air bubbles out and shape it into loafs and often saying “take this Covid!” as they pound the dough. Good therapy with a good result.
September 16, 2021
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We’re seeing wide variations in how different countries are handling the pandemic. What do you think about these differences?
[...] The wide variations in how different countries are handling the pandemic do not surprise me. Every country handles its medical, educational, military and financial policies differently, and those differences can add up to really big differences in results. [...] What HAS surprised me is how incredibly incompetent the United States has been in its handling of the pandemic. Its a great example of how anything can be politicized -- even facts and science -- so that our reactions and ideas can become both inefficient and potentially dangerous in the process. Most of the world already thinks we are a strange, violent society with our guns and our constant flag waving and our refusal to embrace universal health care and our willingness to invade other countries on the basis of erroneous information and the whim of our leaders. Now they get to see how stupid and incompetent we are internally as well. The fact that a huge numbers of American citizens seem to be just fine with this incompetency just underscores what a complete and utter joke the United States is during this pandemic.[...]
August 26, 2020