Easter 2020

I will admit, this was a different kind of Easter but not necessarily food-wise.  We ate REAL good this year.  The sad part was not being able to share it with other's and partake in this wonderful time of year with my family.  I made my Easter Bread and divided it into two smaller loaves so I could take one over to Lauren, so I did get to share some of it, although I didn't get to see the shear joy on her face from eating it. That is probably my favorite part of cooking - watching other people eat it.

Since we are all encouraged to wear masks now, we have three N95 masks that Bruce had in his car for when he visits construction sites.  I told Lauren I would bring one over to her on Saturday so I also decided to take her over a loaf of Easter bread while I was at it.  She was much appreciative and it was good to see each other.  We met outside her apartment building and then I waited while she took the bread up into her apartment.  Then we went for a walk around her neighborhood.  I wore my mask until I got really hot underneath it and had to wipe my nose a few times.  I don't like wearing it!  We walked to Volunteer Park but the city parks were closed this weekend because the city is trying to discourage large groups from gathering.  We hadn't gotten very far before a park concierge approached us and politely explained to us the park was close and to leave.  There were a few people around that he also told to leave so we were not the only ones.  I felt sort of bad because I knew we were breaking the rules and then today there was a big article in the newspaper about how 100's of people broke the rules! I've been so good doing all the things you're suppose to be doing but this is the first time I've broken the rules and I feel bad about that...but it was so nice to get out and see Lauren!  It was the first time I'd driven anywhere and been outside my neighborhood in over three weeks.  But it was O.K. that we left the park because she has such a nice neighborhood and we ended up going to one of our favorites - Bakery Nouveau.  We both have one in our neighborhoods (so lucky!) They are one of the many restaurants open for take-out and they monitor how many people go in at a time so we had to wait in line but it wasn't bad, especially for Easter weekend.

Going to Bakery Nouveau was an unexpected treat so waiting in line gave me time to think about what I wanted to buy.  I'd seen on their Instagram that their Paczki were back from Fat Thursday and my mouth started watering.

But then as we waited, I felt pretty sure they would be sold out so I tried not to get my hopes up.  I had taken in a box of these Polish donuts into my physical therapy clinic back in February and they loved them.

As we waited, I decided that if they didn't have any Paczki that I would get some hot cross buns for Easter.  I haven't bought their hot cross buns before and always wanted to try them.  Luckily, they had them but no Paczki, as I assumed but I was still happy.

Lauren got some croissants and a sandwich for lunch and we walked back to her apartment where we said goodbye and I drove home.  It's weird not being able to eat your food right away or hang out at Lauren's apartment for awhile. When I got home, I had to wipe off the package with disinfectant wipe, take the buns out of the bag, throw the bag away in case Coronavirus was on it, even though I did wipe it off but still..and put the buns in a different "clean" bag.  It's all so annoying what we have to do nowadays.  Now, we have Easter bread and hot cross buns.  I ate one right away when I got home and it was so good.  They have just the right amount of dried fruit in them.  They aren't sweet, more like a basic good quality raised dinner roll but the frosting criss-cross on top (which represents the crucifixion of Jesus ) adds a bit of sweetness, plus Bakery Nouveau also added a crunchy, strudel-type sugary mixture on top.  They were just right amount of sweetness, fruitiness and yeasty bread goodness.  I thought I'd freeze them but we are eating them so fast, no need.  Our Easter bread is going fast, too.

Since I gave half of it to Lauren, we are not having any trouble eating up this smaller loaf.  I only have one envelope of yeast left and yeast is hard to get these day in the grocery store.  We've been able to get toilet paper, flour, bread, eggs, etc. but the yeast is always sold out.  I don't really need it but I'd definitely be making more baked products if I had some.  These days of quarantining requires a lot of comfort food and baked goods are definitely in that category!  I especially love this Easter bread for toast in the morning.  It's my favorite.

 Bruce went to the grocery store again after 10 days last week to re-stock our supply.  He goes during the "senior hour" in the morning when less people are there.  We shop at our local Metropolitan Market which is a smaller-type store so it's never real busy and usually fully stocked.  We are lucky that we live in a neighborhood with so many grocery stores.  We have three within walking distance, plus a Whole Foods, Trader Joes, another Safeway, QFC, and a Thriftway all within 2-3 miles.  But we have a Safeway,  Puget Consumer's Co-op, and Met Market within a mile.  So, we've had no panic shopping or empty shelves like you see on news clips.  Like I said, they are out of some things like yeast, but we've mostly gotten everything we've ever actually needed, like our favorite bread so I don't really need to be making bread.  Last week, Bruce picked up a small Kurobuta ham at Met Market for our Easter.   Usually, we have lamb for Easter but this year I felt like ham for a change and so we got a Kurobuta ham that is like Kobe beef in the ham world.  It is a Japanese name that means "black pig" and the ham is always from a Berkshire pig that is a heritage pork from Japan.   It is known for it's tenderness and it's also much more flavorful than normal ham.  We had it for breakfast and dinner on Easter.

For breakfast we had the ham with eggs and toasted Easter bread.

And then for dinner, we baked it and I made some of my cheesy potatoes with roasted asparagus and our hot cross buns.

But the highlight of our Easter was a Zoom video chat with my family at 4:00pm Pacific time with everybody in my family.  That actually involves about 28 people with some on the East Coast, some in-between and then Nick in Japan.  And everybody participated!  It would be nearly impossible to catch everyone at home at the same time but THANK YOU Coronavirus.

We video chatted for a little over an hour and some people came later and some left earlier but everyone from the family was on at one point.  It was so fun.  It was the first time using Zoom for many people so it was sort of a novelty.  It was pretty funny seeing how everyone looked on Zoom and how the whole thing works.  Not everyone talked at once but it was more like someone would ask a question to someone else and all would listen.  At one point we were all showing each other our masks and at another point we all showed our pets...you know, the usual things...

Some people have Zoom accounts and can change their backgrounds including cutting and pasting different effects.  It's pretty hilarious.  My little 20 month old grandson loved my brother-in-law's background with sheep.  He kept making sheep sounds.  It was so funny.  I have one nephew in San Fransisco and one in Los Angeles so it was interesting hearing what life was like there.  Everyone has different experiences to share in these unusual times.  I'm just happy that everyone is safe and healthy and that we can be together in this weird way.  I hope we can do it again.  This quarantining at home does have it's highlights, thank goodness.  During these days of self-isolation, we need to grab every highlighted moment we can.