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Tuesday, August 25, 2020

ROMANCE IN THE AGE OF COVID

Today Susie and I celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary. Later this afternoon I shall place a call to a French restaurant in Durham which we have been to a number of times and enjoy. I shall order a variety of dishes including snails, a cheese tart, and a tasty pate. Then I shall drive to the restaurant, call when I get there, and release the trunk of my car without ever getting out of it. Someone will come out and place several bags of food in the trunk, then closing it. I shall drive home, bring the food in, carefully sanitize the containers with our sanitizing wipes, after which I will set the table, pour each of us a glass of wine, and we will sit down at our lovely octagonal kitchen table to eat our anniversary dinner while we watch MSNBC.

Such is romance in the age of Covid.

10 comments:

Thilini Prasadika said...

Awww, happy anniversary Prof. Wolff! Much love to you and Susie!

s. wallerstein said...

I clean anything that contains food with alcohol, not sanitizing wipes, on the theory that if a tiny bit of alcohol filters into what I eat, it's less toxic than whatever is in the wipes.

Happy Anniversay.

LFC said...

Congrats. I would order completely different food from a French restaurant. I don't think I'd like snails or the cheese tart, and probably not the pate either. De gustibus...

Chris said...

Congratulations! Ain't love grand!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to you both!

Eric C said...

Mazel Tov!

That all sounded so romantic--even down to the sanitizing wipes (lol)--until you got to the MSNBC. What sane person subjects their beloved to MSNBC?

jeffrey g kessen said...

Just a suggestion: never eat a meal while watching cable news---indigestion and sleeplessness are sure to follow. When I have supper, I always put on a re-run of "Star-Trek: The Next Generation" (though the early episodes are almost as excruciating).

Brian W. Ogilvie said...

Happy anniversary! My wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary a few months ago with takeout Chinese food and a bottle of vintage Moët et Chandon champagne. (Nice for a special occasion, but frankly, I think an ordinary Veuve Cliquot is better.)

You see, much as I enjoy a good multi-course dinner in a restaurant, if I get it take-out in the pandemic, I am faced with this dilemma: do I eat it in the same rhythm I would follow in a restaurant? That's much of the charm, but if I do that, the main is likely to be cold or soggy by the time I get to it, and who knows what the dessert will be like? On the other hand, if I move on from the starter to the main quickly, it's just not as enjoyable, and I feel sated faster.

Hence my predilection for Asian food during a pandemic. We had Korean tonight, and I discovered the delights of tteok-bokki. I cook multi-course meals most nights, since I can control the timing better myself.

As for media, we never watch TV over dinner, but we often listen to a podcast. Right now, Says You; Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and By the Book are our go-to series. I've sometimes even caught up with your blog over dinner.

Jim said...

Holy cats! A whole heck of a lot first world concerns on display here. Ah well, I am in the same boat. Struggling to secure fresh basil, lemons, and grapefruits. Garlic and olive oil had been a concern, but now that is secure. Life is good, right? Don't forget about the Anthropocene. Our time is short-lived.

-- Jim

Jerry Fresia said...

Eric C has a point.

Have you tried either of these news
sources?

The Real News
https://therealnews.com/

Democracy Now
https://www.democracynow.org/