A social-media query that has often been bandied about among the curious (or merely bored), in this time of pandemic-induced social isolation, is whether or not it's had a significant impact on our individual cooking patterns.
Are we cooking more? Are we experimenting more? Have irregular shortages of certain staples such as meat, flour, eggs, milk, and pasta impacted what we do cook?
For my part, not much has changed. I routinely cook every day, and other than developing a recipe for a newspaper column, the only real difference in what I cook is that I'm tending to be less experimental, and am falling back more and more on things I've made dozens, if not hundreds of times.
The reassuring familiarity of dishes that can be done without thinking about them makes them a comfort both in the cooking and in the eating of them. Read More