Items

• 
  2022-06-12

  Trip to Chania, Crete: Wedding of the Century for the Family

  This was the first travel for me and my family when COVID-19 restrictions relaxed to a thoughtful degree. This is important to me because it was a time that my extended family came together and the appreciation of that was heightened by the absence of togetherness through out the more critical time of the pandemic.
• 2023-03-21

  My experience

  Since I am a homebody and like my solitude, the lockdown was not terrible for me, personally. I was thankfully able to work remotely, and used my sparetime, cooking, taking on line classes and learning about homeopathy which I use as my health path, but delved more deeply into it by taking on line classes. The meditation groups that I would attend in person, were able to convert classes to zoom, which was a truly wondrous thing. Other groups followed suit, and before I knew it, I was involved in groups all over the world by zoom - AMAZING! My cousins and I would meet every Sunday on Zoom to share experiences and catch up on "us". My mom who is now 95 was able to facetime with family several times a day (she was given an ipad by her grandson the year before) and it saved her from feeling isolated. Food deliveries were readily available, thanks to Pam Silvestri keeping us aware of the food community happenings. I realize many people had negative experiences, job losses, etc. or not able to cope, and I myself knew many people that passed during that time. I think this is a great idea to document the stories of the lockdowns and how it affected people in different ways. There is so much more to say, but I will keep it summarized and leave it here.
• 
  May 2nd, 2020

  Visiting the St. George Market

  People waiting 6 feet apart at St. George greenmarket. A good turnout, but everyone was following the new rules of not touching the food and social distancing.
• 
  April 8, 2020

  Public Health Measures on Staten Island

  Social distancing, face masks, empty shelves and restrictions throughout Staten Island.
• 
  2020-03-29

  Homemade Food Tasted Different During the Breakout of COVID-19.

  I have a love for baking and cooking which takes up lots of my time when I'm not doing schoolwork. I love trying new and exciting recipes because food from different parts of the world is like a new historical experience. I was a sophomore in college when the pandemic caused us to go into lockdown. We had just come back from spring break, and I remember getting an email saying that we would be moved to online instruction for the remainder of the semester. I was scared because it really hit me that school would not be the same ever again. Luckily, I did not get COVID, but my dad almost died from it. Everyone in my house was separated which meant I had no social life due to not being able to talk to anyone. I turned to baking as a way for me to not think about my sick dad. I basically lived upstairs from my parents. Whatever I made, I would leave for them on the steps to take. Even though my food was delicious, I lost a sense of taste because I wasn't enjoying it with anyone. Food is about culture and people; they go hand in hand. When you don't have that sense it changes how you feel on a social level. When you cook, you want people to enjoy what you're making.
• 2020-09-01

  Incense, Prayer, and Wool

  One of the most profound sensory experiences I had over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic was the new yet comforting experiences that engaged all the senses of visiting St. Anthony the Great Monestary in Florence, Arizona. My first visit, I stayed for a long weekend. Visitors remaining at the monestary for more than a day are put to work on the grounds, aiding the monks in their daily work. I was put in the kitchen due to my previous experience in a commercial kitchen setting. The diet at the monastery is remarkably simple; a bean and rice soup, bread, and tangerines grown at the monastery. None of the smells of these foods were new or remarkable to me, but instead this provided an interesting aural experience. The monks pray constantly in everything they do, and kitchen work was no different. Low, repetitive Greek prayers were the only auditory input in the kitchen, aside from the hum of the dishwasher and the clinking of utensils against pots. Services were held in the early morning, around 3:00am. While making my way from the guests' lodging to the church, I heard a rhythmic wood-on-wood striking, reverberating across the monastery. I saw the source. A monk was striking a wooden board, suspended in the air by two chains, with two wooden mallets. This was essentially the call for the service to start. I later learned from another pilgrim that this practice was adopted by Greeks living in Ottoman-controlled Greece when restrictions on church bells were implemented. The service itself, too, was a sensory experience unlike any other. Sonorous Byzantine chants, clouds of aromatic incense, all lit by candlelight and a handful of small oil lamps. The sense of touch was also engaged; I felt the wool prayer rope in my hand, each knot a tactile counter for the number of prayers completed. Nearly every sense was full engaged in this temporary and much needed respite from the chaos of the outside world during uncertain times.
• 
  2022-05-21

  Hand washing station at Manuel Prado market

  This is a local neighborhood market where you can buy fruit, meat, juices, food, toys, keys, and other items. With the pandemic, this water tank and handwashing station was installed to encourage better hand hygiene.
• 
  2022-04-29

  Need another reason to boost fruit, veggie intake? Try COVID-19

  This is a news story from the American Medical Association by Timothy M. Smith. Doctors mentioned in this article bring up the importance of diet and how it relates to fighting off COVID-19. According to a 2019 survey, researchers found only 1 in 10 adults meet the daily recommended intake of fruit and vegetables. There is a racial disparity as well. The researchers also noted that meeting vegetable intake recommendations was highest among those 51 or older. There were also differences in vegetable intake between groups defined by income level and race. While 12.2% of adults in the highest-income households got enough veggies, only 7.7% of those living in middle-income households did. Meanwhile, 6.9% of Black adults met vegetable intake recommendations, compared with 10.1% of white adults. Other barriers in getting the daily recommended intake have class issues, where some groups are more likely to have access to fresh food than other groups. “Perceived barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption include cost, as well as limited availability and access,” the report notes, adding that “for some persons, such barriers might have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic related to economic and supply chain disruptions that could further limit ability to access healthier foods.” Dr. Kirley said she hopes the pandemic “will draw attention to this longstanding problem and that we’ll start to see more investment in innovative solutions to promote health through better nutrition.” With these things in mind, it demonstrates the barriers some people might have in fighting off COVID.
• 
  2022-04-25

  Empanadas and COVID-19

  These are some photos showing the COVID-19 hygiene measures posted at an Empanada stand called Streat in Arequipa, Peru.
• 
  2022-04-18

  CS Oral History, 2022/04/18

  This oral history is an anonymous interview regarding the hardships of being a low-income citizen during the Covid-19 pandemic.
• 
  2022-03-20

  Cooking During the Pandemic

  This is one recipe I learned to make during the pandemic. It is a chicken pot pie with a biscuit topping (that I luckily did't have to make myself). I've made many things over the course of this pandemic. Restaurants became too much of a hassle for a while in 2020, and many weren't even open. I used to go out to eat more often before the pandemic, but with me starting school again in the fall of 2020, in addition to masks being very annoying for me to want to wear, I would either order takeout, or make food myself. Between school and the pandemic, cooking has become one of my favorite hobbies, as I need to eat anyway, and I have been able to try types of food I didn't know I'd like. Prior to the pandemic, I would not eat pickled things as often, but now I seek it out with recipes to try. I also learned some new skills, like discovering I can make the non freezer variety of jam, and how to use cast iron the right way. I maybe would have learned these skills later on anyway because I enjoy cooking, but being at home more has made me want to try more recipes. Contrary to the stereotype, I did not learn how to make sourdough from scratch during the pandemic, but my dad did, and now he's on a kick with making sourdough bread weekly when he is home. Cooking has been one constant I have had, and I did it before the pandemic, but currently, I am doing it more often to save money and learn more skills. I intend to teach my kids in the future on how to cook things. It's more than a hobby for me though, as the better I can cook, the less likely I am to want to spend money on takeout. With rising prices of food in 2022, knowing how to cook has been a blessing.
• 
  2021-02-04

  New tastes during lockdown

  During lockdown, like many others I came in need of something to pass the time, and also like many I turned to cooking. It was something I already enjoyed doing pre-Covid, but had much less time for it. But during lockdown, there was substantially more time to put into trying new things. Trying all these new recipes became a part of my everyday life, ranging from fresh pasta, to chicken parmesan, to birria tacos. Almost all of these were new recipes to me, and the experiences and sensations that came with making them became a core part of what got me through lockdown. The smells of braising meat and stock simmering became something to look forward to each week. The new tastes and smells were something that brought the family together as we were all home, and cooking in our house is not a solitary affair. And each new dish only pushed me further down the rabbit hole of what most would consider way too much effort for a weeknight dinner. The photos attached are final dishes of Chicken Noodle Soup, Chicken Parmesan, and Birria Tacos, along with an in progress photo of the birria taco meat after braising. For recipes, refer to Binging with Babish on YouTube.
• 
  2020-11-21

  Pandemics are the Pits: Olives and Fatherhood in Nov 2020

  This story describes the terrifying lengths a person will go to in order to address pandemic-caused boredom in their child.
• 
  2022-02-01

  The Toast of Covid

  The COVID-19 pandemic has been quite the sensory overload. Our sight, smell, and sense of sound were heightened as the world slowed down, paralyzed with fear. As I write this, I have just become one of the countless victims of COVID-19, revealed to me by a home test kit just this morning. My body is weak, I cough constantly, I get dizzy if I stand, and I find that my appetite has left me. When talking about the heightened senses of COVID, it would be easy to talk about the sounds of coughing, or the feel of masks pressed up against your face, but in this moment I find my most heightened sense is the smell of toast. Peculiar as it is, it seems to be the only thing I find remotely appetizing at the moment. My mother, who is a registered nurse on the front lines of the fight against COVID has loaded me down with a regimen of vitamins and assorted medicines. She is insistent that I keep something on my stomach to avoid getting more sick. But what to eat? Nothing looks, smells, or sounds satisfying except toast. The smell of heat and bread wafting from the toaster reminds me that it could be far worse. I could have lost my sense of smell completely, as so many have. It further gives me hope that I will move on from my sickness as society will move to manage COVID. What the smells of the pandemic can tell is, is that while it seems a collective struggle of society, it is an even greater individual struggle. How can we cope with sickness when our bodies are paralyzed with the inability to function as we once did? The smell of toast to me that provides hope, could be chicken noodle soup for another, or fresh air for another. These smells are enticing for a number of reasons to improve our health, whether that be toast to hold medicine down, or the smells of outside which bring about a healthy walk. In a world so panicked and overwhelmed, what I think will be ultimately remembered by the pandemic is the appreciation for simple sounds and smells, such as that of toast.
• 
  2020-03-13

  March 2020

  After our weekly grocery run, our pantry was packed.
• 
  2021-12-17

  Cooking During Covid

  These photos are a couple of many foods I have created during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although these times were depressing and lonely in ways it was a gift for me to be given the time to find my passion as a chef. Homemade pasta takes 2+ hours, and homemade bread takes 4+ I never would have had the time to do this before Covid. I think that during this time it is very important to find a little bit of light in a time of darkness, and that's what I did.
• 
  2020-08-12

  Lunch Time

  With the closing of schools, many students no longer had access to a warm and healthy lunch provided by the federal government. Kids from lower income families often rely on school to provide them with at least two meals a day, but because of COVID-19 they no longer could eat certain breakfast like oatmeal and lunch such as, carne guisada, that they have been used to consuming. In order to address this problem, schools began setting up times for parents to come and collect food for their kids three times a day. Ultimately, due to lack of personal time, parents were picking up breakfast, lunch and snacks for three days on Friday.
• 
  2021-08-05

  New Beginnings - Meal Vouchers for International Students

  The meal voucher was made for international students coming during the first weekend of August and did not have food, nor was the cafe open for them to eat. During the summer of 2021, communication between the University Cafeteria and the Center for International Programs was complex due to changes inside the Center for International Programs. No plans were made for the incoming students coming that weekend. For that reason, the Center for International Programs had to create a meal voucher to eat at Starbucks or Chick-fil-a inside the campus. Twenty students were coming in the weekend, and the CIP team had to check them in, bring food supplies, and pick them up from the airport.
• 
  2021-10-22

  HIST30060 The First Night Out!

  This is an image I took on the first night out of the last Melbourne lockdown! I went to my favourite pasta place in Melbourne for dinner and this was their way of making sure everyone they served was fully vaccinated and checked in. Once checking in the server gave us this little laminated slip we gave to the waiter in return for the menu, this ensured no one had sat down without checking in. In Melbourne, it is mandatory for all hospitality venues to have their staff and customers fully vaccinated.
• 
  2021-07-24T14:50

  Chicken feeding as a lockdown activity 2021

  In July 2021, while on one of my afternoon walks, I discovered this local lockdown activity of chicken feeding. A local household was offering people the chance to feed their very friendly and excitable chickens. I am unsure when this activity first started as I do not usually walk the way that would take me past them. However, it was an amusing and relaxing thing to be able to do amidst the chaos of a global pandemic. The chickens were really very cute, despite not the brightest creatures I've ever known. I have visited them with my family regularly ever since that first time and have noted that other people, often local children, have also relished the opportunity to interact with live animals. In a small way, I believe the chickens have brought the neighbourhood a little closer together and given local children the opportunity to interact with animals they would not normally get a chance to. Sadly, due to old age and the presence of urban foxes the number of chickens has decreased and only one of the original trio remains (as of October 2021). However, she has a new friend now and is very keen to establish her authority. The sign and container of dry food has been removed but we often bring them other food- they are particularly fond of sowthistle.
• 
  2021-10-17

  A taste of my motherland with a new twist - Rose Tteokbokki

  Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, my favorite pastime was watching various cooking and food story-time videos on YouTube. Yet, there was one video in particular that caught my full wide attention. I remember on May 6th, 2021, at around 10:45 pm PST, this video appeared on my YouTube recommendations. The video thumbnail showed one of my favorite Korean street foods, Tteokbokki (Korean spicy stir-fried rice cakes), but with a new twist! Growing up, I associated Tteokbokki with flavor notes such as the spiciness of the Gochujang and Gochugaru (Korean chili paste and chili powder), the sweetness of the Mulyeot (Korean corn syrup) in which also helps give the rice cakes its glossy shine, as well as using Sogogi dashida (Korean beef stock powder) to further enhance the umami tangy flavor. Of course, there are other variations of Tteokbokki such as Jjajang Tteokbokki (made with Black bean paste) and Gungjung Tteokbokki (made with both Soy sauce and beef) but the modern recipe with the Gochujang never failed to hit all my tastebuds. Well, that was until I discovered the video. The video used the modern Tteokbokki recipe, but also adding in a new twist with ingredients such as heavy cream and milk to give the Tteokbokki a pink color. Because the Tteokbokki resembled the pink colors of a Rose pasta sauce, it became “Rose Tteokbokki.” After watching the video and doing some research on Rose Tteokbokki (I ended up staying up till 3 am) I became convinced and made some for brunch. Making Rose Tteokbokki for brunch was the best decision I ever made because it still kept the delicious flavor notes of the modern recipe but with the extra creaminess and cheesiness thanks to the heavy cream and milk. Also, adding in meats such as sausages and bacon along with Korean wide glass noodles gave the Rose Tteokbokki a unique chewy texture combo. Once I finished up the Rose Tteokbokki, I posted a picture of the Rose Tteokbokki on my social media accounts, and one of my friends who live in Seoul replied with, “Jungeun! You’re also joining the Rose Tteokbokki bandwagon?! Everyone in Korea is rushing to make their own and/or ordering from the delivery apps because of Covid! Once Covid ends, come visit me and let’s eat Rose Tteokbokki together!” Reading my friend’s response left me with a big smile on my face, and it felt great to connect with the motherland even without physically being there through Rose Tteokbokki.
• 
  2021-10-14

  Smell of Covid in South Carolina

  Until recently I worked for Campus Security at a small college in the upstate of South Carolina. Before Covid, my job mainly consisted of patrolling the campus on foot and by vehicle. I would let students into their dorm rooms when they were locked out, perform traffic duty, write parking tickets, and occasionally perform searches if we thought a student had a weapon or some other kind of contraband. When the virus began to make itself known on campus, our job descriptions changed. Oddly enough, we were expected to deliver meals, three times a day to students who either had the virus or were in quarantine due to exposure. At first, we only had a small handful of students to feed but by the Fall of 2020, we were delivering meals to nearly one hundred students. Keep in mind, there were at the most, only four officers delivering these meals at any given time and the student to be fed were spread all over campus. The one thing that really stands out in my mind during this time is the smell. I have never been a huge fan of breakfast but the smell of scrambled eggs that never seemed to go away, almost ruined the first meal of the day for me. No matter how quickly you delivered the meals, by the time you finished, the patrol vehicle smelled like scrambled eggs. If it was a warm day, which it usually was in South Carolina, the smell was particularly heavy. House Keeping had to sanitize the dorms daily. One particular dorm building had a smell of its own due to the fact that a large trash bag burst in the elevator and spilled its contents all over the ground floor lobby. Many of the quarantined students lived in this dorm and I can still remember the rancid smell when walking through the front door. No matter how much they cleaned, house keeping never could quite get the smell out. While working at the college, I was like most, worried that I would contract the virus. To help prevent this, I sanitized my hands on a regular basis. The smell of alcohol wipes and Lysol will always remind me of this time. I also wore a mask wherever I went and would sometimes spray different scents on the mask to make it smell nice. Smell, above all other senses, will remind me of Covid and my time as a Campus Safety Officer.
• 
  2020-09-09

  The smells of the campus silenced

  The vibrant community around San Francisco State was the main factor why I decided to move into Park Merced. The ability to walk to campus each day or ride my bike with other students was exciting to see riding skateboards or bikes while smelling coffee or energy drinks was common. The smell on campus with the wide variety of food and snacks was common to every part of the campus early or late. However, this all changed once Covid was originally announced and students and staff started leaving the campus and area and the sights and sounds of people and food on the campus were silent. The campus now remained silent and the smells of burritos and coffee were gone along with students walking to campus. The residents who used to sit outside and occasionally sat outside reading papers disappeared. The air while cleaner breathing because of the lack of air was soon polluted by the fires in California leaving a red mist that made the air smell like burnt wood. The pandemic changed so many people's lives and it is important to recognize the impact mentally and physically people have suffered. The pandemic silenced the campus and the community silencing the site and sounds while removing the smells that the campus was known for.
• 
  2020-05-26

  Resisting the Urge to Stress Eat During COVID-19

  A blog post from Banner Health on managing the urge to emotionally eat.
• 
  2021

  POV of a Cattle Rancher

  This is important to me because this is my partner speaking. At the beginning of the pandemic we were living in Montana on a working cattle ranch, so our experience was a lot different than what we were seeing on social media. We experienced extreme food shortages and ironically had an even harder time selling cattle to processors and feed lots.
• 
  2021-10-08

  Just monkeying around with Covid

  This meme provides much needed comic relief while also pointing out the dangers to physical health and well-being due to Covid social distancing procedures. Being creative about maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regimen is an important response to the evolving pandemic. Has Covid changed the way you eat? If so, how?
• 
  2021-07

  Waiting in Limbo

  Going into the weekend of the fourth of July; my roommates and I were notified of our exposure to covid-19. It came as a shock to us as for the most part we had been good at keeping away from situations that would expose us. After some deducing of how we were exposed we came to find out that one of our roommate’s girlfriend was our source. We decided to go and get tested in order to make sure we could participate in whatever fourth of July events we had scheduled. With the four of us packed into a car, we drove down to the nearest testing center. After waiting for what seemed like hours, we were able to get tests. What seemed like it would be a miserable experience of having something shoved up our noses turned out to be alright. A few days later we received calls informing us of our results. My test came back positive along with three of my roommates. However, hours later I was informed that my test was actually inconclusive and I should come get retested. So the next day I got up and drove myself over to the testing center. After waiting for an hour I was informed that I actually could not get tested for another 10 days due to my recent test. With this knowledge I had the pleasure of waiting out the week in quarantine, unsure of my exposure. The days went by long and slow stuck in a white room for 23 of the 24 hours in a day. My only real entertainment for the days being my PlayStation and my computer, and my only food being the simple groceries delivered to my house via amazon. Mostly peanut butter and jelly. After my 7 days were up I would drive to the nearest testing location to get tested. Except, that location was out of tests. I would spend the next 2 hours going to each location finding out the same thing, they were out of tests. The next 5 days would be spent doing much the same. Eventually, I would find a location and receive my test. After 2 more days I would find out my results: Negative. Having already spent more than my required quarantine time I would not know if I truly was positive in the early days. However, I don’t regret the time spent in self-quarantine in order to potentially protect others.
• 
  2021-06

  Lasting pandemic effects of overexercising

  This page from my bullet journal displays the workout I conducted each day during the month of June, 2021. The viewer should note three pertinent pieces of information to understand the necessity of this piece for the archive: the bullet journal itself, the exercise habits, and the timeline between the beginning of the pandemic to the actual entry. Primarily, I picked up the hobby of bullet journaling itself during March of 2020. I wanted a method to record my own habits – such as exercise, eating, music taste, and TV shows - in a scrapbook type format during the pandemic. Truthfully, the entire book would contribute to the archive, due to the personal detail and day-to-day routine recorded. Secondly, the workout tracker shows a slight addiction to exercise, with runs or walks every day, in addition to tens of thousands of steps I already took. These overexercising habits began for me during quarantine, with time and stress on my hands, and no healthy ways of coping. Finally, the reader should also acknowledge that I wrote this entry in June of 2021, a full 15 months after the start of lockdown in the US. That timeline shows that lingering effects of the pandemic remain, perhaps even grow with time. This artifact expresses more about my experience with the pandemic than I can articulate due to one central reason: learning self-love through exercise. Though I’d always struggled with having time on my hands, the pandemic left me feeling more uneasy with loneliness and boredom. Without a healthy way to deal with my emotions, I turned to exercise for the release and endorphins that I needed. Before I knew it, a casual workout each day led to apple watch addiction, calorie counting obsession, and cycles of binge eating and overcompensating through exercise, etc. While this sounds like my own personal journey, quarantine kickstarted and exacerbated these issues for adolescents all over the nation. With the recent introduction of tiktok “What I eat in a day” videos and Chloe Ting’s workout videos, people grew obsessive about wellness and moving their bodies. I learned so much about my body and my brain through this struggle with overexercise and obsession – and I feel grateful for that. Still though, I notice these effects in myself and others. This small contribution of a workout tracker speaks volumes about habits of teenagers after months of loneliness and free time – whether teenagers obtained an obsession with appearance, food, or exercising. And if those issues did not resurrect for some, I’d argue that the pandemic brought many other mental health challenges to surface for my age group. While this submission does little to express my emotions or challenges surrounding my exercise routine, it conveys the lingering effects of mental health tolls and body challenges from the pandemic.
• 
  2020-04-19

  St. Joesph's Patient Observations

  This is a post that my Mom shared on Facebook while she was in St. Joseph's in Cheektowaga for Covid 19 care. My mom discusses her observations as a Covid patient in a Covid hospital in April of 2020.
• 
  2020-04-28

  Don’t Be Afraid to Order Takeout or Delivery

  A blog post from Banner Health about the safety of takeout and food delivery and Covid-19.
• 
  2020-12-21

  Mayans and Covid-19

  The topic of Language & Communication during the Covid-19 pandemic stood out to me because my father was from Guatemala, and I am of Mayan descent. I recently read an article from last year discussing the impact of Covid-19 on indigenous communities, especially the Mayans. The article mentions how certain problems were exacerbated by the pandemic: for example, the inability to effectively communicate the pandemic situation across many dialects. Despite a variety of struggles, the article highlights several benefits that Mayan communities experienced, including a renewed sense of community, culture, and farming.
• 
  2020-03-14

  One Last Family Gathering

  The world changed as we Alabamians knew it on Friday, March 13th, 2020, as that was the last day that our school systems remained physically open before our governor mandated forced early system closures ahead of the approaching COVID pandemic. As a high school teacher, I uneasily said goodbye to my students and promised to see them on ZOOM the following Monday. When I arrived home, I found that my wife had contacted each of her family members to invite them to a seafood feast planned in our home for the next day, Saturday the 14th. We had recently purchased a tremendous variety and quantity of seafood for a planned early summer river gathering, including shrimp, crawfish, and fish; however, the pandemic was likely not going to allow for such a future gathering, and we knew of no way in which we could consume so much seafood ourselves, and were equally incognizant when we might gather as a family again, so this was essentially planned as a “McRight family last supper” (pardon the blasphemy, but that’s how we coined it). We had prepared each of the dishes before, save for Tamsie’s new experiment, her crawfish cheesecake. We had enjoyed crawfish and shrimp cheesecake at a wonderful restaurant, Roux 66, while traveling through Natchez, Mississippi several months previous; that culinary experience informed our desire to recreate the recipe at home! Thus, our sensory memory of better times and a delicious meal beckoned us to return to that sensory experience and give the recipe a try. We researched online recipes to combine basic ingredients, including shrimp, crawfish, cream cheese, onions, eggs, and bell peppers, with two cheeses, minced garlic, Creole seasoning, salt and pepper, heavy cream, and a shrimp boil mix. The cheesecake was delicious, and the combination of garlic, crawfish, and shrimp contrasted with the sweet richness of the cream and eggs to make for a delightful dish. To this day, the smell of shrimp makes me think of those early days of the pandemic because our kitchen was filled with the aroma of that decadent crawfish cheesecake, shrimp scampi, a shrimp boil, fried fish, boiled shrimp, and fried shrimp. We hosted approximately twenty-five family members, we laughed, we talked about the future, and we expressed concern over what the coming days might bring. Afterward, we dismissed pandemic talk to release our concerns for the shank of the evening, as we were living for the moment and celebrating our being together. I remember thinking but it might be a long time before we could get fresh seafood again, because we did not know if the opportunity to find fresh seafood would avail itself again in the near future, nor did we know if grocery stores would remain open. That was a time of complete uncertainty. I will likely never again enjoy a shrimp meal without thinking about March 14th, 2020, as the world in which we had lived mere days before somehow now seemed different, foreign, and unsettling.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  2020-02-01

  Starbucks Egg Bites @ Home?

  While this may be a trivial struggle, the pandemic minutely affected my morning traditions. As someone who wakes up with just enough time to get ready and run through a drive-thru before work, the closure of my go-to Starbucks caused an abrupt halt in my morning routine. I could no longer grab my morning coffee and signature egg bites or great my favorite baristas as I headed off to work. After the swift investment in an Instantpot, I read through numerous recipes in an attempt to get my mornings back to "normal." As I located a sous vide egg bite dupe for those made at Starbucks, I quickly began experimenting with numerous combinations of veggies and meats for my sunrise snack. After several attempts and failures, I eventually mastered the egg bite, and now I consider them a staple of my repertoire. While my mornings were still far from "normal" due to the numerous restrictions set because of the pandemic, a little piece of me felt the comfort that stemmed from the creation of these little egg bites and my coffee in the morning. This experience that spawned out of the events caused by the pandemic forced me to become a better cook and an ingredient-conscious one at that! I've found the kitchen to be a place of comfort and artistic expression now that I know how to appreciate my ingredients, tools, and desire to learn more about cooking!
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  2021

  HST 515 ASU assignment prompt

  screenshot, pdf, and doc of ASU HST 515 prompt given to students by instructor Katy Kole de Peralta
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  2020-10-07

  Pandemic gardening: More than half of Canadians were growing their own food at home this year, study shows

  Gardening and growing one's own food became more widespread during the pandemic, led by worries about food shortages and prices along with the desire to engage in new hobbies during the pandemic. This article discusses a study done by Dalhousie University regarding Canadians' growing their own food during the pandemic and compares the current gardening trend with the victory gardens prevalent during World War II.
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  2020-03-23

  Mental Health and COVID

  During the start of this year the country went through something extremely frightening and new to everyone. The lockdown was something that cause a lot of teens and people get into a really bad state of mind. Being told you weren’t allowed to go out for groceries, see friends, go to the gym, or even visit your local gas station. People were scared and worried about their health and the health of their family members. For myself, having the lockdown meant I couldn’t go to school nor could I participate in my first year of college soccer. It had a really negative impact on my mental health and I started to do things that I would never see myself doing. I was relying on alcohol a lot to get me through the days of just binge watching tv shows and movies. Because I was binge drinking, I would then binge eat and not be active at all. Growing up as an athlete and just as a very active person in general I would never binge eat or binge drink. I started to gain weight and look down on myself a lot. A lot of people don’t realize the impact that the lockdown had on people who really relied on structure to get them through the days and hold them accountable. It wasn’t until September that I really looked at myself and was disgusted with who I became and what I was relying on. I started to run and exercise outside. I have now lost 15 lbs and go to the gym 5 times a week for pleasure instead of punishment. It has been the best journey for my fitness lifestyle and I am so grateful that COVID brought that to me.
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  -0021-06-29

  Deli Smells and Sounds

  This story tells of the dramatic shift in "normalcy" that the pandemic interrupted.
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  2021-06-23

  Delivery

  Waiting near my door, Becoming hangry, guess he Doesn’t want my tips! :0 -very angry and hungry customer
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  2021-06-20

  Comfort Food Redefined

  I spent the first few weeks of the pandemic and subsequent banishment to my home by my workplace eating bag after bag of potato chips. Something about crunching down on food was calming to me. I didn’t eat a lot of other food; when I am stressed, my digestive system is the first body part to put up a fuss, so besides the therapeutic potato chips, I didn’t feel much like eating. I don’t own a scale and didn’t feel that I was putting on weight, but one day I looked at my dog, who was the recipient of the chips I had dropped on the floor, and thought to myself that he if had gained weight. I made the leap in thought that if he had gained weight, perhaps I had too. I had to redefine my notion of comfort food from fatty food that crunched to food that truly comforted both my digestive system and my nervous system. This food was comprised of roasted veggies (to get that crunch!); veggie, protein powder, and fruit smoothies to give me the nutrients to deal with pandemic stress; and nuts and fish such as salmon for omega-3 fatty acids to counteract inflammation, fight depression, and nourish those brain cells so necessary to deal with all the changes required by the pandemic. All these changes in my daily food menu have had a massive and positive effect on me. I’m calmer, my intestines aren’t complaining, and I have more energy. And, I've maintained a health weight. I haven’t gained weight. Before the pandemic, I hated to cook and mostly just ate to survive without paying much attention to what I was putting in my body. The pandemic and its accompanying stress forced me to realize that the quality of one’s life is truly related to the quality of one’s food choices. Healthy food is truly comfort food.
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  2020-07-19

  Schmagel's Bagels

  Sign outside encouraged customers to use the outside seating and follow CDC social-distancing guidelines. Sign read: “Our Schmagels family wants you and your family to be happy and healthy.”
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  2021-03-16

  Safety at Teriyaki Ha Ha

  At Teriayaki Ha Ha on Route 1, just across from Nease High School, staff erected a wooden frame with plastic sheeting hung from it to create a protective barrier. When you walk in the front door, your order is waiting on the table. Cash is put into an envelope or credit card taken in advance on the phone. Everything is no contact. Next door is a Papa Johns where staff had masks pulled down around their necks and I observed several people walk in without masks, revealing how widely safety protocol differs from one business to the next.
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  2021-05-04

  Dreams Six Room Poem

  This is from an assignment in Paula Flynn's 5th grade class at Franklin Elementary School, in Santa Monica, CA. Hugs, relief, and happiness. Sunlight shining through trees at all angles. Laughter and chatter, both mushed together to create a beautiful moment. The wonderful aroma of food, once more able to be shared. Hope, joy, and love. Was the coronavirus caused for a reason?
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  2021-04-26

  P-EBT returns for Tempe Public Schools

  One unexpected surprise during the pandemic was that everyone enrolled at my daughter's school received the pandemic-electronic benefit transfer. Essentially, because kids were at home learning online, they did not receive breakfast or lunch at school. There were pickup options, but we didn't really use that service. So, instead, the state mailed us a card that can be used to buy groceries. It was really unexpected, and we just found out that we get another allowance this week. It's a really nice boost to the grocery budget and it recognizes the importance of nutritious, consistent meals for kids.
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  2021-04-18

  Feeding America in a Pandemic

  Feeding America released briefs in March of 2020, one for food insecurity locally and one nationally due to the pandemic. I have attached the national brief. This is relevant to my research on the consequences of the pandemic. The briefing looks back to 2019 and 2020 and compares notes on food insecurities. Feeding America reviews this and discusses the future of food insecurities. It also talks about how race effects food insecurity, which is something that needs to be talked about.
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  2021-04-03

  JOTPYFuture submission from Tri Le

  #JOTPYFuture For the future I hope to go out and go to my favorite restaurants without the worry of catching COVID-19.
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  2021-04-04

  COVID Impacts

  This article by the World Health Organization (WHO) talks about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s livelihoods. The article says “tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty.” As a human living in a two story house that is food secure, this may just seem like a number. But extreme poverty is a human rights violation, and it is already clear the pandemic’s ripples are affecting people in serious ways. Further in the article, it starts to talk about the effects on the food and trade industry, which includes issues with closed borders, farmers being able to sell their food, and even people accessing healthy foods. The article ends by acknowledging the opportunity we have to rebuild a better world, and I find comfort in this thought.
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  03/11/2021

  Tom Dickinson Oral History, 2020/03/11

  “Chef” Tom Dickinson is the Culinary Instructor for Fairfield High School in Northern California. A native of Oregon, Tom shares his journey in overcoming his personal challenges as a student with Autism who was often dismissed by his educators, to becoming a beloved teacher himself. He is currently organizing the development of a comprehensive culinary program that teaches students essential life and job skills. Tom reflects of the effects Covid-19 has had on his life, community, and students. He reflects on the challenges of online learning and shares the creative ways he has tried to connect with students using technology during the pandemic.
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  2021-02-12T12

  The Celebration of Chinese New Year

  I photographed this picture at the time of Chinese New Year. Even though we all live in Brooklyn, we reduce the time of visit because of the high infection rate. Finally, we got a moment to sit together and chat about the things that happened this past year (After making sure everyone is safe to attend this short and small dinner time).