My long-lost friend Keith found me on Facebook. He retired from the U.S. Post Office and stayed in New Jersey during the quarantine to do nothing. He happened to spot me on the friend list while surfing the Internet. I haven't heard from him for almost 20 years. Among the hundreds of photos I uploaded, he gave dozens of them a series of likes, all of which were photos of me dining in delicious restaurants all over the world. Under my latest development, he left a message: "You did a great job!"
"You don't understand," I replied, isolated from the world in London, "I used to eat out every day. Everyday! Now I have to not only cook, but also wash the dishes, and finally post a post complaining about what I made. Why is it so unpalatable." Most of my best photos were taken a few months ago, but he commented on a home-cooked meal I made the other day: microwave-heated sausage rolls and a cup of tea. Seeing his praise, I was dumbfounded. Doesn't he understand the irony? Fortunately, he ended the awkward conversation with a dumbfounding emoji.
| Re-enter the kitchen |
I belong to the kind of urbanite who likes to use the kitchen to put shoes, store books and even keep tax returns. When I lived in New York, I unplugged the refrigerator and only reconnected it when I needed to freeze ice. I moved to London two years ago. The real estate agent showed me an apartment with a great view, but I was sorry for the refrigerator, which was the same size as six shoe boxes. I immediately rented this apartment. The refrigerator and even the kitchen are nothing. I live alone and eat out every day. The restaurant can determine my quality of life.
Of course, the epidemic broke everything. I have just moved into a new apartment recently, which is located in the artistic Shoreditch district, next to my favorite restaurant. There is a large refrigerator in the apartment, which doesn't matter until I have to use it. When I walked out of the house, there were restaurants everywhere, but my family couldn't get in either! I can only quickly order pots and pans from Amazon and start my kitchen journey again. I put photos of the dishes I made or take-out meals that suit my appetite on Instagram, interspersed with reminiscences of past foods, and attached emojis with sad tears.
My mother is the best cook in the whole family and taught me some basic cooking methods many years ago. In the early 1980s, our family moved from the Philippines to the United States. At that time, I would cook for my parents and siblings. After independence, I gave up cooking completely. I eat in different restaurants in New York every day, and I can eat more than 80 years. I can choose more than 20 of them and become their regular customers. I still miss them so much: Momofuku’s super delicious daily specials, Atoboy’s delicious Korean side dishes, Matie’s fragrant Embanada pie, Estela’s refreshing and delicious brunch... and of course Midnight West Village. Pizza later cut into slices for sale.
But I am stuck in London now. At the beginning of the quarantine period, I ordered a service where fresh fish and meat were delivered every two weeks. A restaurant I frequented before the epidemic also increased its income by supplying vegetable boxes. However, I still have to solve a thorny problem-how do these ingredients become dishes that I am willing to put in my mouth and swallow?
| Practice makes perfect |
There are too many things to learn and review: distinguish between baking soda and baking powder, calculate the correct ratio of water to rice, clean up the organic fertilizer in the folds of fresh leeks, wash your hands after touching raw chicken, and dry it with clean and tasty water The mushrooms are soaked, the operation method of the Siemens oven and stove and the strange beeping sound, remember to hold back your tears when cutting the onion, in case your eyes are blurred and your fingers are cut off.
In spite of the difficulties, I was able to stew a 3 catty bird to taste like chicken soup, and boil 6 catties of beef bones for 12 hours to make a broth. I freeze them in the refrigerator. If there is a more serious disaster, my instant noodles will at least be tasteless. I learned from the chefs who posted recipes and techniques on Instagram, and made an onion quiche that was pretty good. I apologized to the chef who posted the recipe for my cutting corners and shoddy work. He replied to me: "Diligence can make up for the weakness."
The sense of accomplishment that all this brought to me quickly shifted to washing dishes. Of course, how to use leftovers to make the next delicious meal is also a technical job. I was eating and thinking, how much should I have left? What other leftovers can it match with the next meal? Planning a menu with leftovers may be a good opportunity to be creative, but in most cases it is just the beginning of despair. I repeat these drudgery, they make me more confident to dominate the housework, but also sting me. I used to make fun of my mother, wearing her eye-catching diamond engagement ring even when cooking. When the hot food oil splashed on me, I finally understood why my mother did that-to divert people's attention from the scalding dots that made her hands look old.
The endless dormant life reminds me of those lovely restaurants. They may not be perfect, but most of them are losing money out of love. The epidemic has made the situation of unemployed employees in the catering industry particularly dire, and it is these restaurants and their employees that provide me and other urbanites with a valuable gift-the time saved by avoiding cooking.
The restaurant is a good medicine for me to get rid of loneliness, save me from tedious and time-consuming housework, and let me savor the fleeting joys of urban life. At the restaurants I often go to, I am delighted with the "single food" state accompanied by food and books. I can talk to the bartender, gossip with the waiter, indulge in the swaying aroma of the wine with the sommelier, and discuss with the chef the amazing nuances of a new dish. Then again, I still enjoy the process of cooking: searching for raw materials, cutting onions, washing dishes, sorting leftovers, and of course buying kitchen utensils-such as the £25 meat thermometer, should I take it? What does it do?
| Nostalgic Restaurant |
Cooking personally saves me a lot of money, but it takes time to cut vegetables, wash dishes, observe whether the knife is sharp, whether the cooking oil is burnt, and decide what to eat. I keep repeating these things, and I can be sure that the most important members of the restaurant team who are also seriously underpaid are the dishwashers and trainee chefs.
I am afraid that because of the epidemic, people will dispel the idea of visiting the restaurant again, which means that the golden age of eating out and enjoying life has ended in tragedy. We rushed to the restaurant with joy and excitement, and were led by the waiter into the escape from the crowd. If the package service of the roadside food truck replaces all of this, the charm of the restaurant will no longer be.
Whenever I visit the Norma restaurant in Copenhagen by Lehrer Reggio, I look forward to Ali Sonko, who has been a dishwasher for a long time and is now a partner of the restaurant, will greet me confidently with an absolute sense of ownership. . Norma is an oasis in the center of a big city, and it is obvious that all good restaurants are like this. Last September, I finished my lunch and sat in the restaurant’s garden, listening to the conversation between Reggio and his master Ferran Adria. The Spanish Costa Brava Bulldog restaurant to which the latter belongs was the golden age of dining out. The main promoter of They are discussing how to keep the soul of the restaurant alive. Now that I think about it, it was a sad conversation, after all, all restaurants are fighting for survival now. Regedo and Adria’s restaurant set up a think tank to try to find solutions to adapt to this ever-disastrous world. Adria also teaches fans to make Vichy cream cold soup on Twitter, while Reggio serves burgers in the Norma Garden for a long time.
Before the outbreak, I witnessed the closure of many favorite restaurants. I used to go on dates at Chef Luo Mujuan's Anissa restaurant in Greenwich Village, and judge whether the person is worth pursuing based on the reaction of the date to the restaurant. It has been closed for three years, and I miss it very much and I don’t go on dating anymore.
I am still hopeful about the return of those closed restaurants. As I wrote this article, I also visited Elise and her partner Anna, who once ran a "rooting" restaurant in Brooklyn (which closed in 2017) and now moved to northern Ulster County, determined to start again. They set up a residential site in Phoenician Town: a long path through the grass, extending to a trickle creek, the open-air design of the restaurant allows diners to eat in nature. They also spent a lot of time integrating into the Phoenician community, combining the ideas of local farmers and artists to create restaurants.
I pray that their new restaurant will be a success, just like I did for all the restaurants that I like and want to visit again. I hope that they can pass the trial of this disaster and continue to be our refuge in pursuit of happiness in the future. Maybe next time I see Keith, we will be able to go to the restaurant for a meal together.
