It’s April 25th, the 44th day of the “Stay-At-Home” Order, and thankfully we are still healthy. So are all of our extended family members. In fact, we have only heard of one person we know that has had the virus and they contracted it in another state. But we are NOT in any hurry to turn things loose! The winery remains closed for public hours as we await the governor’s word expected in a few days. The curves for the state and the nation still seem to be climbing straight up.

Do not harm the oil or the wine
With no other complications, our challenges remain all about the food. I’m actually starting to enjoy doing some baking with a goal of always having a sweet treat available and some form of bread. Many things we were “saving” for some future purpose are now fair game; this includes soda mixers, cheese trays and crackers from the winery inventory. It’s been fun to open some bottles of wine from other sources put aside for a “special occasion.”

There is much to learn about what works and what doesn’t work and we will be more prepared next time, heaven forbid there is a next time. In our “emergency” supplies, the canned goods have proven sufficient, and other dry staples have stored well. The biggest spoiler was oil. Both olive and canola oil in storage have turned rancid making some cooking and baking difficult without it.

We have tried ordering online for shipment with only partial satisfaction. One order was missing an item. Another order of 4 items was delivered in 3 separate boxes. This was guilt-producing on our end, feeling like the delivery services are already hard-pressed. Exploring the Order/Curbside Pickup scenario, we were disappointed as earlier expressed. We have made only one venture into the grocery store during the quarantine so far, but plan a trip next week.

A land flowing with milk and…eggs
By observation, it seems the more processed a product is, the longer it takes for inventory to recover. Stores seem to have plenty of fresh farm products like milk, eggs, butter, meat and poultry. They may need folks to buy these things to keep things flowing. Paper goods tend to be a problem still as well as sanitizing products. Fresh fruit and vegetables have been avoided and I’m not sure why. It may be their openness to touching and squeezing that bothers me. Ice cream is also off the table since the package is difficult to sanitize or change, it can’t be “timed-out” at room temperature, and we’ve heard the virus is not killed in the freezer. It’s also observed that everyone has a different comfort level and people draw their lines in different places. I’m thankful for the freedom to have various opinions.