Lunch in the Time of Covid-19

Virtual crêpes!

Kaarina

With Covid-19 at large, Epitourists were all staying put: Safe in our homes — Laura on Wolfe Island, Caroline in the Durham Forest, Diane and I in Toronto. Yes, we were all social distancing, in self isolation, but we were not about to cancel our March Epitourist lunch.

There was no getting around it. If we wanted to eat and greet, we had to get over ourselves and our antipathy to seeing ourselves and being seen on video. It was time to dial up a video conference call. Of course, we couldn’t share the taste or smell of the dishes we each prepared in our own kitchens but we could see them and enjoy our own creations in virtual companionship.

This was more a social call than a culinary happening. The idea was to cook from ingredients that are pantry staples in most people’s kitchens. No special trips to the store required.

Caroline

 Opa!

An hour before our virtual lunch I decided on Greek Egg-Lemon Chicken Soup, or Avgolemono, to use up the chicken thighs from the freezer. This five ingredient soup is comforting and delicious. The eggs act as thickening agents. The lemon zest and juice bring a delightful zing of acidity to the savoury chicken broth. 

It was nice to have lunch with my epicurean friends. Life as we know it today has put a stop to the touristic aspect of our group. Trips are being cancelled and we give going out the door a second thought. 

Kaarina

Pasta, pesto with potatoes and green beans.

The great late Marcella Hazan who taught the world to cook Italian declared in her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking: “When all its components are right, there is no single dish more delicious in the entire Italian pasta repertory.” This was not the case with my Pasta and Pesto with Potatoes and Green Beans. Unfortunately, I forgot Marcella’s cardinal rule. Seasonal. Perhaps if my potatoes really had been new small potatoes and the green beans fresh from the garden or a local farm market ...  Instead the potatoes were pantry staples at the end of winter, and the green beans were not even green beans but frozen edamame, and the pesto was the last of the pesto I made from my garden basil and froze in September. Well, you can’t freeze pesto for six months and expect it to taste like summer.

Diane

Crêpes Suzette!

Personally I have found extra time to tinker in the kitchen and spend a bit more time experimenting. Ruth Reichel started my quest for perfect crêpes with her recipe for German Apple Pancakes, making them seem deceptively simple in her book, Save Me the Plums. On my first attempt they were certainly not thin enough to be stacked three high, layered with filling and rolled. Try again. The secret to thin crêpes seems to be to refrigerate the batter and let it rest. I turned to the more classic crêpes Suzette for the Epitourist lunch, having simple ingredients at hand. I have to say, I did like flaming the crêpes with Grand Marnier, with the liqueur adding a taste of torched caramel. Delicious! Paired with a glass of the same liqueur.

We've all seen the internet memes showing the ten pound gain "before" and "after" self isolation. All this time on our hands and the fridge so nearby... I will have to seek out more recipes with a bit less butter, but why deny the occasional extravagance?

Laura

Having a well-stocked pantry is a regular fact of life when you live 20 minutes away from a 20-minute ferry ride to the closest grocery store. There’s never any popping out to pick up an ingredient you don’t have on hand. We are fortunate to have neighbours on the island who provide us with eggs and beautiful grass-fed beef and pork. During he summer I have land to grow vegetables. But at the moment I have my son and his girlfriend, who is vegan, living with me. The fresh summer veggies are not around yet and I don’t always feel like preparing meat and non-meat lunches. So I had to get creative. 

Hhmm... cauliflower bolognese!

There was a cauliflower lurking in my produce drawer, and I had most of the other ingredients on hand to make a cauliflower bolognese. I used olive oil instead of butter, and I kept the parmesan out of Mira’s portion, replacing it with a bit of nutritional yeast, which is a good umami substitute for cheese. I didn’t have rigatoni, so I substituted gemelli pasta. I didn’t have fresh parsley, so I snipped a few of my kale sprouts that I have growing in my little indoor microgreen garden. 

My little microgreen garden!