Letters from quarantine*

There’s no place like home.

*More or less.

Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we report to you from social isolation. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.

Lavender latte at District Donuts Sliders Brew

2209 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70130

My life is not a novel (yet). But there are times that the plot transitions so dramatically, I wonder who wrote it. The before: I am on vacation, in New Orleans. Each morning, I am woken up by the delightful question of “Where should we get breakfast today?” The after: I am hunkered down in my apartment in Brooklyn, surrounded by soup cans, woken up each morning by half a dozen alerts about coronavirus going off in two work chats. The event that changes everything: My flight, pulling into New York City, the most densely populated city in the US, where the tricklings of a pandemic are about to begin. On the last day of my old life, I begin the morning with a lavender latte at hipster cafe that sells impossibly sugary donuts, fluffy biscuits, and flavored coffees. The paper cup is rimmed with purple sugar, like a chaste margarita, and the latte, which is not too sweet, tastes like flowers.

(Heirloom red corn) grits at the Elysian bar

2317 Burgundy St, New Orleans, LA 70117

[Setting: Before the pandemic. A candle-lit restaurant inside of an old church. The restaurant’s decorations remind me of an old-school European hotel, all sepia tones and high ceilings and big curtains. We sit at a table for two in front of a fireplace that goes out mid-meal, that I’m too polite to ask for more of. The millenials on the couch next to us talk loudly about the ins and outs of menstrual cups, which I appreciate. It turns out that they’re healthcare workers. The grits are the best grits I’ve ever eaten, perfectly plump flavorful kernels, topped with a puddle of saucy mushrooms and a tall pile of fried shallots and a perfectly poached eggs. A perfect meal. End scene.]

A pistachio scone from an ex-lover that I found in the freezer

Made in a brunch restaurant in Brooklyn that I’ve forgotten the name of.

On the day that I decided to break up with him, a former lover of mine showed up with a box full of pastries from the restaurant that he worked at. I took them home with me after the deed was done and put them in the freezer. As much as I adore breakfast pastries, that is quite a lot of baggage to inhale with my morning scone and so in the back of the freezer they stayed. But now that the End is Nigh* it seemed like an appropriate time to break out those heartbreak pastries. On day two of isolation, I toasted them up in a warm oven and took a bite. In an illustration of the cruelty of life, these turned out to be the best scones I’ve ever eaten. They have a crispy crunchy outer crust and a very moist inside and I wish I could eat them for breakfast every day; but sometimes in life you have only one chance to eat the best scones in New York. That, ladies and gents, is the price one pays for loving.

*Which is apparently a fun game you can play on Steam?

White beans au vin at My Quarantine Kitchen

You can get the recipe from the NYT Cooking app.

Sometimes I wonder if apocalyptic events are just marketing strategies for the Big Bean Industry. Come coronavirus, hurricane, blizzard, or flood, it seems like everyone at the grocery store is emptying the bean aisle. Anyways, clearly it’s working, because I bought a can or two (or three). The part I may have gotten wrong is I then cooked them immediately instead of waiting post-disaster, but hey! I tried! The recipe, “White Beans Au Vin,” is from the New York Times cooking app. After the success of the Mushroom Bourguignon recipe I was really excited to try another quasi-French vegetarian recipe. Alas, this one didn’t turn out nearly as well, maybe because I decided to dump in half a bottle of red at the last moment? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Chaotic neutrals gotta chaos.

Red lentil soup with lemon at My Quarantine Kitchen

You can get the recipe from the NYT Cooking app.

Following up on my above comment on apocalyptic events being remarkably good publicity for legumes, I made another batch of bean-based dinner. Again, I don’t think I’m getting the right message because I keep buying beans and then immediately cooking them, but, hey, at least my fiber intake is good now? This recipe was much simpler than the White Beans au Vin, and it also was much more delicious (perhaps because I followed almost all of the instructions). Put it in your social distancing stress-cooking arsenal.

Keep calm, and for god’s sake, please cancel your parties,
Soph