Items

• 
  2021-08-08

  Cooking with Canned and Frozen Foods

  The file that I have included is a description of how My wife and I were essentially forced to resort mostly on canned and frozen foods for our meals rather than using fresh ingredients.
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  2021-08-08

  Green Tomato Pickles

  Due to school closures because of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, I finally had time to start a vegetable garden. This was something that I had wanted to do for years, but by the time I was out of school in June and had the time, it was too late in the season to begin. As a side note, the fact that school buildings were closed in no way means we teachers were not working hard to try to continue the education process for our students. The pandemic did change how we taught, though, giving me more time to finally begin my vegetable garden. This story is specifically about my tomato plants and the green tomato pickles I made from them. I originally began my tomato plants from seeds on my kitchen windowsill in April. In mid-May, when they were about 8 inches tall, I transplanted them to a raised garden bed. This was my first experience growing a garden, so I overdid it with the number of vegetables I attempted to grow in my 4’ x 4’ space. Besides the tomatoes, I planted green beans, carrots, onions, beets, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. The tomatoes and squash took over and that was all I got. For some unknown reason, the first set of blossoms on the tomato plants didn’t produce any fruit. Late in the summer, I finally started to see some fruit, and it was early September before I was able to harvest any. At that point, though, they exploded with fruit. I live in the high desert north of Los Angeles and our weather is not quite as mild as the rest of LA County. We go our first freeze in mid-October. At that point I harvested about 5 lbs. of green tomatoes. A friend of mine had the same issue and decided to make green tomato salsa. I decided to make green tomato pickles. I used a combination of recipes. I have a Little House on the Prairie Cookbook that I experiment with from time to time, but I modified some of the spices that recipe called for because I wanted dill pickles. So, I played around with it until I had what I wanted. They were excellent! Then I did one more thing that I had never done before. I experimented with hot water bath canning so that I could preserve them longer. I ended up with eight jars of green tomato dill pickles, some of which made their way into Christmas gift baskets for friends and family. All of this was because I had more time on my hands due to COVID-19 and California’s Stay at Home order.
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  2020-04-09

  Pandemic Dinner of Gluten-Free Orange Chicken is a Sensory Reminder of Evolving Grocery Shopping and the Effect on My Mental Health

  Pre-Pandemic, my small family of three went shopping altogether at our local Frys Grocery every Sunday. As the type of person that lives inside their head and has difficulty multi-tasking when distracted, this was usually an overwhelming experience. It involved avoiding people parked sideways in aisles, answering questions from my wife and daughter (somehow usually at the same time), and being interrupted by loud intercoms. To me it was sensorial overload every week of my hearing and vision to the point where I wanted to leave. When the pandemic really started up in April of 2020 my wife and I decided that my daughter should stay home and we would take turns shopping every week individually to decrease the chances of affecting the employees, the other customers, and ourselves. Along with this was my increased effort to come up with meals and recipes on my "turn." The recipe attached, gluten-free orange chicken from https://www.evolvingtable.com, reminds me of this interesting evolution in shopping that still takes place, as it is my turn to shop today. While my wife looks upon the idea of shopping individually as a loss and misses it...I am able to shop without being overwhelmed. Between less customers in the store (due to ordering online and pick up), the store progressing to using handheld radios, and being by myself, I can really focus and no longer am stressed and overwhelmed to the point where I just want to leave. Every time I make this recipe and taste the delicious orange flavor and smell that hot sesame oil that I had never used before the pandemic, it reminds me of how a stressful pandemic has strangely (and selfishly) made one recurring weekday of my life less stressful.
• 
  2021-08-07

  Diane Ramirez Oral History, 2021/08/07

  How one Hispanic female dealt with the cooking challenges that took place in the early months of the pandemic. In particular, one meal she prepared on September 26, 2020.
• 
  2021-03-21

  A tale of the babka

  If you had asked me if I was a baker prior to the year 2020, I would have unequivocally said no. A cook? Yes. But a baker? Absolutely not. But that was before the global Covid-19 pandemic. I worked in the cruise industry prior to the pandemic and I travelled a lot for my job. I was not home enough to really jump into and try to master baking. Following mandatory quarantine in March 2020, I suddenly had extra time on my hands. Further, I was laid-off from my job in early June and ended-up with even more time on my hands. Like so many around the world during quarantine, I took up baking. But unlike the many who tried sourdough, I started with making standard wheat breads and then went straight to enriched breads like babkas or challahs. The photos I am attaching here show my progression as a baker. My first babka was fine and tasted great, but as you can see, I have improved in technique and in flavor over time. My favorite babka recipe comes from King Arthur Flour. As a new baker, I relied on the King Arthur Flour website for flour and yeast tips, baking tools, and recipes. I was too hesitant to add walnuts the first time and I accidently used a quick-rise east instead of standard yeast. As time went on, I felt more comfortable adding walnuts and raisins. I also felt more comfortable working with the dough to perfect the twisting technique of the babka. I relied on trial-and-error for most of my recipes, but I also watched all episodes of the Great British Baking Show and found some videos that gave me the basics of flour, yeast, and water. My family were very surprised by this newfound baking skill. But they enjoyed tasting the results. I have enjoyed bringing people together over food – and I have enjoyed giving loaves as gifts. I am still trying new bread recipes and plan on continuing to bake even as life slowly returns to our new normal.
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  2021-08-07

  Food Is Not Always Comforting

  This is a story of my family's experience with food and the pandemic. For us, it was a reflection of another difficult time in our lives.
• 
  2020-05

  Food Shortages During a Pandemic

  While most people tried new recipes during the pandemic, what I remember most is the food shortages that forced me to constantly change what I was planning to make and how I made it. I began using grocery pickup before the pandemic, and since I am a full-time caregiver to my mother who is high-risk for COVID, we continued to use grocery pickup as much as possible to limit any exposure to the virus. Unfortunately, this meant that I could not get halfway through the store, realize that I could not make what I was planning due to unavailable items, and put stuff back and try to buy something else. Though I do have the store substitute most items when they can, especially during lockdown sometimes they couldn’t provide any substitutions, which would leave me without one or two crucial ingredients and unable to fix anything to eat. To combat this, I started getting enough food for two separate dishes for every meal, so if plan A didn’t work out, hopefully plan B would. I also started planning for meals that could be used with the same ingredients, except for one or two, and then get both options just in case one was out of stock. Beef and noodles and chicken and noodles would be one example of this, where the main recipe and ingredients are mostly the same, the only difference being the frozen chicken with chicken broth versus prepackaged beef tips with beef bouillon. Due to their minimal ingredients and their easiness to make, these two interchangeable recipes to me most represent the pandemic and what I fixed the most of during the lockdown and food shortages. I have attached the recipe for both.
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  2021-08-06

  Emily Brignone Oral History, 2021/08/06

  While working from home I started snacking a lot as I frequently missed breaks and lunches due to the increased workload I also tended to work later than before so while I had no commute I stopped working around the same time I would have gotten home if I had been in the office most of June and July. I found snacking was a way to stay present in the physical world while living almost exclusively online during work hours and frequently replaced or at least supplemented some very hurried lunches. My favorite snack I had never tried before but it was suggested to me by someone who later passed from Covid and so now reminds me not only to be grounded but of them. My favorite snack is really simple but was new to me: wheat thins with light veggie cream cheese. It tasted like what the summer should have been instead of what it was. It was also a shift for me since I didn't eat a lot of convenience foods before COVID I took the time to make food so the idea of creating little snacks to replace generally more nutritious and regulated food was new to me.
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  2021-08-06

  Pressure Cooker Comfort Food

  The COVID-19 pandemic brought about many difficult changes to people’s daily lives, including self-quarantining. In 2020, I bought a pressure cooker. The pressure cooker is a device that has made cooking for my family easier. When we couldn’t go out to the store, it allowed us to use ingredients we had at home to make easy and hearty meals. Beef stroganoff quickly became a loved recipe in my house, and we would make it whenever we could not go out to the store. It required little effort and always tasted delicious. This was the perfect dish for when we were sick and stuck at home, and we felt rejuvenated after eating it.
• 
  2021-08-02

  Macaroons

  The COVID-19 Pandemic led me to try a new and challenging recipe of Macaroons. This is my experience.
• 
  2020-11-30

  Creating New Traditions in a Pandemic

  One of the traditions in my family is to make lefse, a type of Norwegian flatbread, at Christmas time. This tradition was started by my grandmother, because it was one of the foods that she associated with her childhood Christmases as the child of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants. Every year, no matter what was going on, we gathered together as a family at the start of the Christmas season to make lefse. If you’ve made lefse before, you can attest to it being a labor-intensive process, which involves ricing pounds of potatoes, rolling out dozens of balls of dough until they are paper thin, and frying them one by one on a hot griddle. It’s one of those recipes that works better if you have several people to help. In my family, everyone had a job to do. The youngest children of the family were put in charge of popping air bubbles that rose from the dough while it cooked. The older kids took turns flouring the rolling boards and rolling out the dough. The adults were responsible for cooking the lefse, a process that involved transferring huge rounds of dough to the hot griddle using long turning sticks. Even family members who were not culinarily inclined were put to work, folding the finished lefse and packaging it up so that it could be frozen, so that it was available for Christmas morning. It was a family affair, that filled the kitchen up with laughter and stories and more than one flour fight. Family lefse day is one of the most enduring memories of my childhood. When the pandemic made it unsafe to travel or even to visit my family, I found myself facing a Christmas without being able to participate in my family’s lefse making tradition. There were many teary video calls to family members as we all came to terms with the fact that we would be missing this tradition for the first time in nearly 40 years. At this point, after enduring months of isolation because of COVID-19, I was devastated. It didn’t feel like the holidays without this tradition and making lefse by myself felt overwhelming. I was telling my friend Mike about how sad I was over missing out on this tradition, when he offered a solution. We would both quarantine for 14 days, purchase all the ingredients we needed and have them delivered, and then he and I would make as much lefse as we could. I was stunned by his generosity. After all, this was not his tradition. In fact, he’d never even eaten lefse before. But he saw a way that he could help a friend feel better after such a trying year. So, we did just that. With only two of us, it took us about six hours, but we ended up with nearly thirteen pounds of lefse that eventually got sent to family members in four different states. The best moment came when we all video chatted from our homes on Christmas morning, just to eat the lefse together. It was different than normal, but it was a joyous moment. Mike joined us on the call and shared some of the challenges we had making thirteen pounds of lefse in a tiny apartment in the middle of a pandemic. This year, he’s been invited to my parents’ house to join in on the family lefse making day. After all, it’s tradition.
• 
  2021-08-02

  Jared Holmberg Oral History, 2021/08/02

  When the Pandemic first broke out, I was concerned that I would catch the virus since I was working in an elementary school at the time. I thought of various ways to boost my immune system and I thought making healthy soups sounded like the best idea. I looked through the internet and I found this healthy quinoa soup recipe. I tried it and absolutely loved it. It was savory, hearty, and contained a rich blend of rustic flavors. This dish became one of my favorites throughout 2020 and I still cook it from time to time. For anyone looking for a healthy way to fight the virus, I recommend this recipe.
• 
  2020-08-17

  Comfort Food in an Uncomfortable time.

  In the midst of the chaos of: at home learning, quarantine, and the endless stream of commercials asking to support major corporations such Mcdonalds and Taco Bell, the epiphany that fast food could be made...slower, safer, but just as nostalgic, came to mind. No longer will you have to put your life, or an essential workers life, on the line for mediocre fast food! In order to emulate the staple dish of a CrunchWrap Supreme, the following ingredients are necessary. Recipe Ingredients: - 16 oz of Ground Beef - 4 Large Tortillas - 8 medium size tortillas - 1 head of lettuce - 4 oz of tomatoes - 2 oz of peppers - 4 tablespoons of sour cream - 6 oz of cheese - 1 tablespoon chili powder - ¼ teaspoon garlic powder - ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes - ¼ teaspoon dried oregano - ½ teaspoon paprika - 1 teaspoon salt - 1 teaspoon black pepper Steps to Make It 01 Layer skillet with oil and heat to medium or medium-high heat. Allow the oil to heat before adding the medium tortillas. Once the oil has begun to "pop" place one tortilla into the pan. It should sizzle immediately, cooking for about 10 to 15 seconds. Repeat until 4 medium tortillas have been cooked. 02 On Medium Heat place the ground beef on the skillet. Add powders, spices, as meat cooks. 03 As the beef is cooking, dice the tomatoes, peppers, and place in a small mixing bowl. *note a food processor may be used as a substitute 04 As the beef has finished cooking, set aside for 5 minutes 05 Assembly: Place 2-4oz of the cooked beef in the center of an uncooked large tortilla, 06 Apply a spoonful of cheese, and diced peppers and tomatoes, and lettuce 07 Place a medium fried tortilla atop the meat,cheese, and lettuce mixture 08 Spread ½ tablespoon of sour cream, place another spoonful of cheese, diced tomatoes and lettuce 09 Place a medium uncooked tortilla atop the fried medium tortilla 10 Begin to fold the large tortilla’s outer edges over the filling, creating a five sided shape 11 Reheat the skillet to medium heat and place the CrunchWrapSupreme, seam side down, on the hot pan. Cook until lightly golden. Flip and cook on the other side for 1-2 minutes. 12 Repeat steps 5-11 13 Enjoy!
• 
  11/29/2020

  James Morrel Oral History, 2020/11/29

  James W. Morrell has worked with Wal-Mart for over 20 years. In this interview he describes his experience working for Wal-Mart before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  2020-08-01

  Weight Bias and COVID-19

  It may seem strange to reference a study about obesity and H1N1 but if you are a member of the fat community it makes complete sense to reference medical mistreatment to understand what is happening to fat bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obesity is said to be one of the risk factors with the highest death rate for COVID-19. As a fat asthmatic, I find it hard to believe that my body fat will be the death of me faster than my inflammation prone lungs. What I and others living in large bodies know is that medical professionals carry a traumatic and often dangerous bias against us. We swap war stories in the comment section of social media posts about the multiple times doctors have mistreated, ignored, or nearly killed us due to their often blatant ignorance. This study shows just how that bias has resulted in the death of patients before and how that bias may be the reason more obese patients die from COVID-19 then thinner patients.
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  2020-05-20

  Making My First Sourdough Starter

  I decided to start making a sourdough starter a couple months into quarantine like just about everyone else. I had a fairly large stockpile of flour in my cupboards because I bake fairly often, so I didn't have to worry about dwindling supply at the supermarket too much. My grandma taught me how to bake from a pretty young age, and my mom made bread with an electric bread maker for years, but I'd never attempted my own loaf without a bread maker, let alone a sourdough starter. A starter always seemed like something out of reach and far too difficult for an inexperienced bread maker, but with armed with encouragement and tips from some friends via Discord, I set out to make my own. These are photos of my process, from my beginning mixture of flour and water to my first sourdough loaf (and my starter's permanent 'home'). I'm fairly proud of it. It took me about 2 weeks to get the starter to really start; I'm guessing in part because I only had all-purpose flour and not the suggested rye flour. There was a lot of troubleshooting involved before it really started to mature. It's been an interesting process, and I'm really glad I tried it. Starters are far more resilient than I had previous believed, and the bread is fantastic. It's been a somewhat calming respite from everything, even though I feel fairly selfish giving myself that with everything that's happening.