How I Spent The Lockdown
Over the past 4 months, in observance of the necessary social distancing in the time of COVID, my days have been occupied with reading books- murder mysteries set in Venice and Paris, bios of entertainers and First Ladies, chefs and other creatives; knitting, or trying to knit, a blanket for my granddaughter, Morgan, who leaves California for college in Washington state in a few weeks; walks with Elsie twin a day; and a very occasional get-together with a few friends. Ordinary things. But, the big thing, the new thing, the unusual thing (for me, anyway) is that I’ve been cooking, twice a week, Live, on Facebook for friends and family. In that time the recipes have been, as I like to do it, inspired by many traditional French recipes, by what’s great at the market, those foods that catch my attention and start my mind whirling through the possibilities of what to cook. There have been some near fails, and I’ve learned a lot about remembering to turn the oven on ahead of time, how to gauge when something should come out of the oven in relation to “show time”, perfectly cooked (my clafoutis needed more time!), and how to pull a pastry dough back from absolute disaster without sweating too much.
The first few shows I danced with anxiety for the hour before it went live, anxiously going over and over the recipes, pacing until the church bells chimed 7 o’clock, checking ingredients, repeatedly, and wondering why I was doing this. But, despite constant flubs caused either by me or by circumstances beyond my control, I soon found that I was dancing with glee after every show. It is great fun sharing time in the kitchen with others, and that’s really all I was doing! Early on, a friend said I was a combination of Julia Child and Lucille Ball. I loved that.
It helped that my friend Luke, who lives in Torino (Turin), Italy, sat out the lockdown with me. We spent much of our time, the first few weeks, talking about what we were going to have for dinner, so, when the Live broadcasts started, we had a creative routine already established. One of us would say soup, the other would say onion soup, then we would figure out how to make it so that it was acceptable to Luke’s vegetarian diet.
Some of the foods we’ve made on Chez Moe En France the past 4 months.:
We have moved from the very end of winter to the middle of summer, producing more than 40 recipes while overcoming the constant obstacles that kept popping up: the sound wasn’t working on the broadcast, the video feed was erratic, the sink was clogged 2 minutes before we started a show, the hot water heater failed and needed to be reset, again, 2 minutes before we started the video. Or, the phone fell out of its holder, crashing to the floor, while recording several videos. Several times. The pâte brisée was too stiff, the puff pastry was too loose, the oil based pastry was almost liquid, the dogged barked, the phone rang, the temperature hit 35 C (95 F) on a day that I had to turn on the oven.
The idea to do this grew out of a video class I gave for my grandchildren. It was our way of making contact even though we were all locked down over 6,000 miles away from each other. I’ve long been a believer in that adage if you give someone a fish, you feed them once, but if you teach them to fish, you will feed them all their life. And, while I understand that not everyone loves to cook, I do think it’s important to feel comfortable at the stove, or the cutting block, so that you can satisfy your hunger in the most healthy way, with fresh produce without having to run out to a restaurant or rely on prepared foods.
As the weeks have passed, I’ve given a lot of thought to the next step here. It seemed obvious that much of this could be moved to my current website, and, as I pondered the possibilities, my vision became quite elaborate: a site where people could not only watch my Live videos and access the recipes, but also a place with reference for cooking terms, videos of basic cooking techniques, recipes demonstrated in a way that would encourage the novice cook to give them a try yet still engage more experienced cooks.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve worked at building out this site from a simple blog page to include a membership section featuring those things that I’d imagined for the site. The learning curve has been steep, and it’s all still a bit rough, but, with a bit of help from my friend, Colin Douglas, I’ve got a good start on many of those items: A glossary of cooking terms; recipes from the Live broadcasts (not quite half are up, but I’ll be filling them in over the next weeks) with pictures and videos attached; an Amazon shopping section with kitchen items used on the show, cookbooks and other books that I enjoy.
As I said, it’s not quite complete, it might be a little rough in places, and it certainly hasn’t realised it’s full potential, but I’m close enough to give you all an idea of what it will be. For right now, the recipe search is confined to the little search bar at the top of the right hand sidebar, and it’s quite basic, but, as I’ve learned, WordPress has a Plugin to fix that! They have a plugin for everything. (So far, I’ve added at least 12 plugins in building this part of the site. That’s like 12 little programs you have to figure out, add data to, and customise to your needs. It’s been a massive learning opportunity.)
If you would like to know a bit more about the membership program, you can just click on the link below. I have to go now- I need to get ready for todays broadcast. We’re making a Smoked Haddock and Potato Salad Appetizer on FaceBookLive!
2 thoughts on “How I Spent The Lockdown”
Thank you for sharing your recipes, techniques and humor with us! I’ve truly enjoyed your classes during quarantine and look forward to so much more. Had fun “shopping” your favorite kitchen tools on Amazon. 😊
Thanks! I changed out the 12” skimmer for something more home-kitchen friendly!