Month: April 2020

Cod

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Pan-fried in ghee until flaky and seasoned with salt, pepper, and Jamaican style curry powder.

Plantains

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Pan-fried in butter and hazelnut oil and seasoned with pumpkin pie spice.

From the pantry: saag and peas

We had a couple of cans of vegetables in our pantry that were a little past their “best before” date: saag (curried mustard greens) and sweet peas. I mixed them together, seasoned them with hot red pepper, turmeric, and lemon grass, and then heated them in the microwave.

The result

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If you were planning to do grocery shopping this week, sooner is better. There are not one, but two major holidays later this week that involve special dinners:

• Passover, which starts tomorrow and has special dinners (Seders) tomorrow and Thursday, and
• Easter, which starts Friday and concludes Sunday, typically with a big dinner.

These holidays mean that groceries might be busier this week. Couple this with the current hoarding behavior and multiple recommendations to try and stay in for the next two weeks because they’re going to be bad, and you should come to the conclusion that if you’re going to buy groceries this week, sooner is better.

John Tory, Mayor of Toronto, and Dr. Eileen deVilla, Medical Officer for Health for the City of Toronto.

I may no longer be based there, but I do make it a point to catch the news conferences given by my sister, Dr. Eileen deVilla, who’s Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto. She’s the leader of the public health effort to bring COVID-19 under control in Canada’s largest city and economic capital.

As I write this, the news conference is about to begin.

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The Social Distancing Sing-Alongs have been great fun. The first one, being a last-minute thing, was limited to mostly people from our corner, with everyone staying on their lawns and reasonably distant from each other.

However, I noticed that at the following Sunday’s event, people who very clearly weren’t from the same household were congregating together rather closely, which is the exact opposite of what social distancing is all about. Yes, we all want to get together and hang out — doubly so in tightly-knit communities like the one we have here in Seminole Heights — but the last thing I want to do is cause people to spread the disease we’re trying to contain.

I’ve got my hand full racing to revise a book, so I’m postponing the next sing-along to Sunday, April 12th, which is after the book deadline. Want to watch it? It’ll be on Facebook Live on my page — facebook.com/joeydevilla — on Sunday, April 12 at 7 p.m. EDT.