
My seasonal allergies kicked in this week, resulting in post-nasal drip and a little cough, cough, and pretty soon you think, oh shit, this is it. However, I stayed inside for a day, drank a lot of water and my sinuses cleared up. Another bullet dodged.
I haven’t been within six feet of anyone except Dale. I always wear a mask and wash my hands fanatically, but still. This is scary stuff. As a bit of a hypochondriac, I decided to proceed with what I’m calling my early warning system. I ordered one of those pulse oximeters that measures your blood oxygen saturation levels. They say it’s a good way to catch a drop in blood oxygen levels, which can be a dangerous sign of COVID-19. Around $30.
We get a free newspaper we call the Village Idiot. I was reading it during breakfast this morning. They did man-on-the-street interviews, asking people what they were doing for the July 4th holiday. One guy said he was going to the Bay Area. One person said she was going to Utah for a family reunion. I almost choked on my granola. Why not swing by South Dakota and swap a little spit at Mount Rushmore while you’re at it?
Another woman said she was having a barbecue. While Dale insisted it could be just cooking up ribs for her family, having a barbecue sounds like an event not a cooking technique. I just wonder if any of these people are paying attention.
We’re not going anywhere. It’s not exactly traditional fare for America’s Independence Day, but I’m making chana masala, which I would describe as chickpea curry. The base is onion masala. I made the base yesterday, and the fragrance was intoxicating. Onions, spices, garlic, ginger and tomatoes all stewed together in the Instant Pot. I gave Dale a little taste, and he said just give me a spoon and we’ll have that.
BTW … I don’t use canned chickpeas. They’re fine, but I like the taste of beans when they’re cooked from scratch. And they’re so easy! I add dried unsoaked chickpeas to the Instant Pot, add water to cover and cook at high pressure for an hour if I want them on the soft side. For more bite, maybe 45-50 minutes. Then I freeze them in the liquid. Perfect for homemade hummus and other dishes like chana masala.
The big experiment today will be naan, Indian flatbread. I’m excited to try it. We have a small outdoor pizza oven, a Roccbox, and I’m going to cook the bread in that.
Food is starting to seem like the last good thing left of civilization. Dale and I both love to cook, but I’ve definitely gone down the rabbit hole since the pandemic started. We weren’t big into restaurants anyway, but now that’s not even an option for us until maybe next year. Cooking has been my savior throughout all this. And the more I cook, the more I want to cook.
The pasta I made this week came out great. I learned it helps to let the rolled-out sheets of pasta dough dry a little before cutting it into noodles. To reward myself for such genius, I ordered a pasta drying rack. I’m eager to try ravioli, perhaps stuffed with butternut squash and topped with a browned butter sage sauce, but I want to do tubular pasta a few more times to ensure this week’s success wasn’t just a one off.
One downside of all this cooking is the urge to splurge on kitchen stuff. I try not to indulge unless I absolutely positively need it, but I have my eye on several items: a gratin pan, a ravioli mold, a tart pan with a removable bottom and a waffle maker.
The waffle maker is high on my list because when are we going to get those again? Besides, the last ones I had in a restaurant were disappointing. Oh, and when I asked the waiter if they had real maple syrup, the guy looked at me like I was a complete asshole and said, “Well, it didn’t come from a tree.”