Covid-19 and Us: Stay at Home Wk.6

This week was just fine. Birds have been frequenting the little stone bird bath that's situated in our little cottage garden. Work-wise, I’ve been spending my time trying to learn how to ‘do’ Instagram...I’m completely proud of not knowing much about this social network, and will be doubly-proud when I get a handle on it. Yes, I'm taking a class. 

We spent this Saturday morning—as with the last several—volunteering at the Donald Bentley Food Pantry. We tied on our homemade masks and donned light jackets to bike over. The difference this week was significant. The usual flow of the food pantry tends toward the predictable…in fact, Tim, the perennial volunteer calls that time between 10 and 11’the witching hour.’ This hour normally has a distinct lull, and we volunteers can grab a coffee or snack and prep for the last hour’s rush.

This Saturday, the client traffic was steady. The usual shallow line of 6 to 10 people at a time started before the doors officially opened at 9AM, and wrapped around the block for most of the morning. Each third person that we logged in was a first-time user of the service, and in that last hour (11am to 12pm) I was shocked to see so many young adults come to grab a week’s worth of groceries; kids in their late teens, early 20's

There's a little game I play each week, where I ask our fearless leader (and my fellow volunteers) what they would use some of the produce—that we hand out—for when cooking. In my first week, we had red seedless grapes. I polled the crew then went home and found some delicious grape-filled recipes; one is a grape grilled cheese. Another week I was curious about yams; the resulting recipes I found included a raw yam salad and hummus-filled baked potato. In a different week I got really excited about things to do with peanut butter that were not sandwich-based...that's when I trumpeted to all who would listen, 'cold sesame noodles!" 

This weekend we had an abundance of those thin-skinned, long cukes that I love so much. I really had to search, but found a gorgeous cucumber kimchee recipe. It works out great because one of the spices that we had up for grabs was a Korean Chili Sauce.

This little game is fairly pointless, but I like to visualize little recipe cards that get slipped into each grocery bag.

By the end of the shift, hubby and I were both worn out. We biked back home, made a cold sesame noodles dish for lunch, then did a tiny bit of gardening before we crashed out for the evening. 

The economic fallout from Covid-19 business closures and stay-at-home orders will mean more first-timers at food pantries, more young people, busier volunteer shifts, and all sorts of ramifications that I cannot foresee.