So, what exactly have I done in this time when I've been more homebound than ever before: well, I've gotten to know the area I live in, my new apartment, and cooking a lot, lot more. All the while still dreaming of when I'll be up in the air again - be it for work or for fun.
Getting to know the area around me actually started serendipitously well before the lockdown. Back in February, I was home alone one weekend at it was unnaturally warm for February - maybe 50 degrees or so - and I decided to walk local trails. The first one was one I had walked many times before, the Plainsboro Preserve about half a mile away from my house. I've been there dozens of times. Where I hadn't been to dozen of times, or never to be accurate, was a trail in Princeton, about 15 miles away.
The first time I went there was because I found it in an app, AllTrails, that lists trails all over the country. It was fairly barren in February, with dead trees and shrubs and slightly melting creaks and lakes. But something about it seemed interesting. So that first week of working at home, it was also unusually warm so I decided to go back. And then I went back and back and back and back. I think at this point I've gone on this trail at least 45 times in the intervening 90 days since this started. It went from barren, to the slight hints of spring, to the first daffodils (that got fairly swiftly eaten), to lush green, to now it being a jungle.
I started going on teh trail they laid out, then did it in reverse, then added one rocky section, then another rockey section, and turned what was a 45-minute jaunt, to a 1hr10m nice trail up and down and left and right. In the mddle, two geese laid about five eggs which turned into five adorable little goslings. Each time I went, I passed the same geese and goslings, who promptly grew and grew and grew. Probably two months after I first spotted them, they are almost unrecognizable, sheddig their fluff and growing down feathers and looking very much like geese.
That circle of life stuff is actually way more apparent on how quickly the place turned green. I was lamenting in either late April or early May on how barren it still was, how the trees had barely grwn their leaves, how little vegetation there was. In maybe the span of one week, it was unrecognizable. It was amazing.
The other aspect to my time trapped in teh wilderness of being at home, was learning to cook. I mean, I always knew how to follow a recipe and cook a decent meat every few months or so, but cooking has become a weekly tradition. It started at the time we started using our instant pot. I don't remember exactly when it turned into a Friday Night routine - cooking for the famiy. Early on, it was testing out Indian curries in teh instant pot, be it lamb korma, butter chicken, and an amazing Safed Maas (white curry lamb). Then it became trying to test out my plating abilities - with thai flank steak over carrot three ways (roasted, fries, puree), or duck confit as a first course with penang curry duck breast as a second. Or a hree course meal of radish soup, thai scallops, and a malaysian lamb chop.
All these recipes were found online, and I followed nearly word for word, but did add my own flavor - like randomly putting homemade garam masala and honey into random recipes when it didn't cal for it. It was always good though. Cooking became relaxation, even when in the moment it is a whirlwhind of mise en place-ing less than I should leading for cooking in a manner more frenzied than needed. It has become a passion, and one I hope to continue - maybe just not on a Friday Night when there might be othe rmore interesting things to do.
The final aspect that has kept me sane during teh period - and by sane I mean giving me enough to worry about that I forgot the predicament we're all in - is decorating me new apartment. I bought it right before the lockdown started and then waited while every stop got elongated - be it the inspection, the close, etc. Furniture stores all shut-down, forcing Wayfair into my life in a huge way. It really exploded after I found this site called floorplanner.com, which allowed you to at least place furniture and visualize in 3D. I spent hours on that thing. Bit by bit the actual house has come together - apart from maybe the biggest purchases such as a bed, mattress or couches - or a fervently overpriced half-barrel.
In that house is a kitchen that is nowhere near as large or as well stocked as the one at home, but I do have a freezer that hosts some goat. I yearn for the day I can cook in that house, and put into ation the lessons and skills I developed during this time, followed by maybe a hike to a random point in New Jersey - a place in the only state I ever called home. In some ways no one will ever forget this pandemic and lockdown, but for me, it is not only remembering the dread and the drear but also the fun, the nature, the seasons, the cooking and a new house to fill those memories with.
