As writer Alice LaPlante says, “Contrary to what you might think, absolute freedom isn’t always beneficial to creativity. Instead…constraints, or limits in choices, are often more conducive to creativity than the blank page (or empty computer screen).” Her words will ring true to any writer who has ever claimed a day to write only to become overwhelmed and paralyzed trying to decide how to start. That overwhelmed feeling is magnified during the pandemic, when fear and distractions have frazzled our brains.
The fourteen women writers in my 2020 Great Smokies Summer Writing Workout workshop committed to the class as the economy was shutting down, jobs were ending or changing, young children had to be homeschooled, and grown children were forced to return home. To harness my students’ creativity in the midst of the upheaval, I assigned them to write a piece about their pandemic experience in the format of a recipe. They were constrained to one page and limited to the conventions of a cookbook: Ingredients. Directions. Serving sizes. They responded with honesty, poignancy and humor. Their Pandemic Recipes, below, provide a snapshot of an unprecedented time, as lived by a resilient group of writers.
Recipe for Readjustment, Quarantine Edition
Submitted by Katelin Rice
re·ad·just·ment
noun
1. an alteration or correction made to achieve a desired fit, appearance, or result.
Ingredients:
1 Oversized Penske Truck
1 Highway: interstate 40 westbound
1 White plastic chip
1 2.5 hour drive
1 Ongoing pandemic
1 Stay-at-home order
Serving size:
February – July (recommended)
Instructions:
Step one – Hit rock bottom. This will come in various shapes, sizes and flavors. You’ll know it when you see it. Waking up on a bathroom floor, again, is a good start. Then, carefully and with strong reservation, decide to make the move.
Step two – Pack an oversized Penske truck with everything you own.
Step three – Head westbound on I-40 until you see the mountain skyline. Avoid the rear view mirrors. Remember, this recipe is fragile and can be easily swayed.
Step four – Let simmer. Keep in mind, boxes will remain packed through detox. Keep the necessities close, the rest can wait. When the sickness subsides, long enough for you to leave the house, find a meeting. Surrender to the process, pick up a white chip, and wait. Recommended cook time is 30-90 days. The process will be slow at first, but with patience, you’ll begin to see the dough rise.
Step five – While baking, observe the changes around you. You may notice changes in your daily routine. Don’t fret. Stay positive and have hope. Know that businesses will reopen, masks will soon disappear, and you’ll come out the other side. *chase with a shot of vitamin c
Recipe for Asheville Uprising Cake
Submitted by Camille McCarthy
A pandemic-season dessert best served with sides of mental fortitude, pickled activism, and a margarita. Perfect for end-of-quarantine celebrations.
Ingredients:
1 addiction to Facebook, entrenched
1 coronavirus pandemic, novel flavor, global
1 quarantine, undetermined length
alcohol, copious amounts
1 tourist town facing financial ruin
handful of fireworks
fistful of anger
300 police officers
$29 million policing budget (annual)
spate of police murders, racially motivated
1 phallic monument to racist man, aged 82 years
outraged folks (a few hundred to start)
1 camera
Note: Stir in 5-30 minutes of Facebook addiction in between every step.
- Mix together coronavirus pandemic and tourist town to create mass unemployment base. Place in quarantine.
- Add a shot of alcohol for every passing day.
- Marinate in spate of police murders for three months.
- Gather outraged folks next to phallic monument. Surround with 300 police officers mixed with $29 million annual budget. When tear gas and rubber bullets appear in hands of officers, toss in fireworks for spice.
- Use camera to record violent reactions. These can be served as an appetizer to city council members, paired with fistfuls of anger. Steps 4 and 5 should be repeated until number of outraged folks reaches the thousands and mix with fistfuls of anger to become a solid, immovable mass.
- Bake solid mass until aroma of police budget cuts reach city council and phallic monument is removed. Flambé when served for burning precinct effect.
Note: If cake collapses before police budget is cut, wait 2-3 weeks, reassemble materials, and repeat steps 1-6.
Best served one day at a time.
Recipe for a Developing Mother-Daughter Relationship
Submitted by Michelle Miller
Ingredients:
1 Daughter (lives in North Carolina)
1 Aging Mother (lives in Connecticut)
Several heaping handfuls of quietly strained family history
Mixture of: Handful of guilt, dash of dutifulness, 3 T awareness of passage of time, & heaping cupful of love
1 Pandemic
Set out mixture of daughter and family history. Her contact with mother during her adult life will be barely visible – several visits, a few phone calls per year, and multiple emails that have often been combined with just enough procrastination to have been left unanswered by daughter.
Once this broth has simmered for years slowly add the mixture of guilt, dutifulness, awareness of passage of time, and love; daughter should then form the vague intention of at least calling mother more often. Add 1 pandemic. This should allow her intention to finally rise higher than the resistance.
Several weeks earlier than her usual April birthday call to mother initiate this atypical phone call. When the moment arrives, allow daughter to breathe deeply for several minutes, phone in hand, before entering the number. Listen carefully to mother's apparent gladness but disappointing lack of expressed appreciation or surprise. The call itself should be outwardly smooth, though daughter will feel uncomfortable through much of it; include reassurances about family health and well-being, general news, and one scant tablespoon of book discussion. Absence of potential to plan a visit due to pandemic will noticeably lighten things for daughter. End call with usual “I love you”. Repeat every few weeks.
Initial yield for daughter: Small amounts of satisfaction and connection mixed with pondering mystery of mother's simultaneous love and distance. Ultimate yield will only become obvious as process continues to be repeated and mother-daughter relationship unfolds over time.
Recipe for a Pandemic Protest in Murphy
Submitted by Lilly Knoepp
Ingredients:
3 teens from Murphy High School
2 black mothers with their daughters
2 men in Confederate flag face masks
1 biker combat veteran gang
A number of men standing with their arms crossed
Members of the Tri-County Women’s Democratic Club
A number of locals
One angry chihuahua
At least three journalists on Facebook live
Over 200 face masks in various positions
A sign with a clever pun or just “Black Lives Matter”
Despite any concerns about the global health pandemic, schedule a mass event. Set the event time during the daylight hours to reduce the chances of violence. Pre-heat the summer temperature to 80 degrees. Add all ingredients and shake until agitated.
Make sure to post to social media for maximum participation and disinformation. Encourage participants to wear a face-covering of any kind.
As the crowd begins to assemble, fumble with a megaphone. Shout out commitments to peace, respect for the police and thanks for community support. Remind folks to try to socially distance during the demonstration. After a suitable amount of awkward chatter, begin to march. You should make sure to extend the march as far up and down the street as possible for the greatest impact. (With the help of local law enforcement, block off the street ahead of time for the best result.) Once you have reached the final meeting point, allow the group to chant slogans rhythmically, “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police” or “I Can’t Breathe.” These should be loud enough to drown out the angry chihuahua barking from his owner’s arms on the sidewalk.
When lining up speakers, do NOT open up the floor to any volunteers. Lift up young black voices. Donate any leftover waters and supplies to the local homeless shelter. Disperse before curfew. Shake a police officer’s hand. Liberally apply hand sanitizer.
Serves a crowd of about 300, and continues the conversation about systemic racism across Western North Carolina.
Also good if re-heated and served as a conversation starter, or a follow-up event.
Recipe for Halting your Creative Dreams
Submitted by Rebecca Porche
Ingredients for Letter of resignation starter:
2 college degrees (pay attention to expiration date…they go bad quickly)
5 service industry jobs (choose from different sections of the international aisle, the last from the beer aisle)
1 overripe textile artist/mother desperate to finally make her dreams come true
Ingredients for Main recipe:
1 Letter of resignation starter
A daily subscription to inspiration and commitment
3,000 or more cases of coronavirus in the United States
2 kids’ school closures (the children must come from the womb of the artist, and the closures must be dated March 13, 2020)
5 ½ cups of ultra-pasteurized fear
The zest of 1 ball of optimism (only measures about ⅛ teaspoon)
More Zoom meetings and Google Meets than you can stand
As much patience as you can afford (If it’s too difficult to obtain, substitute yelling, and subsequently a large dose of shame)
253 sq ft of unused studio space
⅔ of a quilt series
2 unfulfilled photography sessions
1 website with an empty webshop
2 4-lb bags of exhaustion
First, you must have two college degrees, as one will likely have soured before getting them home from the store. In a mixer, combine the degree that’s still usable with the 5 service industry jobs and cream together until it changes appearance and becomes fluffier. Chop the overripe textile artist in pieces and add to the bowl. When it forms into a ball, cover and let rise. 21 months later, you will have 1 letter of resignation, an essential ingredient. Sprinkle your daily subscription to inspiration and commitment over your letter of resignation starter and let it bloom on the counter over 9 months. It will be stunning and appear to be almost ready, but we are cooking up something else entirely. Once you have accumulated 3,000 or more cases of coronavirus in the United States, combine it in an emotion processor with the two school closures. With the machine running, pour in 2 ½ cups of ultra-pasteurized fear with the zest of optimism. Reserve the other 3 cups of fear for later. In alternating small batches, add in more Zoom meetings and Google Meets than you can possibly stand, the patience (or yelling/shame if you don’t have any on hand), and the fear you reserved earlier. Season to taste. Though it might be hard to stomach, do not add any time alone, that may result in the revival of your dreams. Dump the whole mess on the counter, and sprinkle liberally with ⅔ of a quilt series. It will be quite sticky. Crumble 2 unfulfilled photography sessions on top. Use your hands to rub in 1 website with an empty webshop, and top with 2 4-lb bags of exhaustion. Roll that shit up and shove it into a too-small container. Bake it at spring-summer temperatures for god only knows how long. It might not be fully cooked and will likely taste horrible, but you are supposed to consume it daily starting right away.
Serving Suggestions: Keep ingesting small bites daily until someone tells you to stop and try not to throw the hardened loaf at people when they ask if you’ve had lots of time to work in your studio since the pandemic started.
Recipe for Teen Resiliency
Submitted by Margaret Lynn Brown
(An old recipe, maybe from the 1930s?)
Ingredients:
1 over-scheduled teen-ager
A pandemic (or other national emergency)
1 parent or guardian
The phrase, “That’s disappointing.”
Tongue-biting, as needed
The sound, “Uh-huh,” if necessary
After the Pandemic hits, one by one sporting events, science fairs, concerts, student government meetings, dances and even graduation will be cancelled. Use this recipe immediately after the first plan is scratched.
As emotions boil over, nod in acknowledgement. Wait, however, until words bubble to the surface, such as “That is so unfair!” or “My life is over!” Listen, and when there is a pause, add, “That’s disappointing.” It’s important to say this only once and before the bedroom door slams. For particularly verbose teens, wait to use the phrase until they run out of steam. Do not hold forth about the importance of social distancing, caring for the elderly community, or volunteering etc. If such ideas rise to the tip of your tongue, bite down. If absolutely necessary, add “uh-huh.” (Flatten this sound so that it is devoid of connotation.) Do not under any circumstances stir the pot by “looking on the bright side.” Again, bite down. Repeat as necessary in the coming weeks, never departing from this simple recipe.
Caution: You will not know that this has worked for months or years, but the rewards are lifelong. You have to trust that resiliency will serve your child more than honors and awards and Prom dates.
Recipe for An Introvert’s Guide to Stay Home, Stay Safe
Submitted by Emma Cassedy
Ingredients:
1 insomnia-riddled introvert
Support network
1 floofy, woofing pillow snitch
12 bookshelves, filled
1 ukulele, untuned
The right medication
1 relentless, meowing void
Emergency stockpile of Post-it notes
Never-ending supply of baby carrots
Blackberry jelly
Strain introvert free from sodas and caffeine. Set aside to marinate in shock until room temperature and goose pimples disappear.
Season with depression and mania to taste.
Test run Work from Home protocols (aka take over the kitchen table and top off with a cup of tea every weekday morning at 8am).
Shake out support network; test communication systems.
Pick through bookshelves for a few promising reads.
Drizzle haphazardly with ADD syrup.
Construct Post-it note Master To Do List on the most travelled-by wall.
Think about sleeping.
Ignore text messages and calls. No matter who they’re from. (Repeat for several days until guilt bubbles over).
Listen to Hanson.
Endure bi-weekly injections of freshly squeezed anxiety.
Finally open a book.
Nap.
Keep turning pages.
Liberally sprinkle with cute animal photos, silly memes, and baked goods.
Serves: you right
Recipe for Reconciliation During the Pandemic
Submitted by Catherine Smith
10-15 hastily scrawled text messages
5 teary phone messages
A box of tissues
Your fiercest dress
Iced coffee for fortitude
Sunglasses
One tankful of gas and a gardening glove
The loudest Billy Strings music you can find
Windows down
Whisk your texts into an unappetizing froth. Slowly add phone messages for added context and a touch of humility. Walk around the house muttering to yourself, use tissues to blow your nose, and wipe tears. Send more texts until communication turns bubbly and active. Reread texts and check social media for “secret” messages. This next step is crucial: confirm position with best friend/and sweetheart and move to phase two of the reconciliation process.
Put on the long dress and sunglasses that make you feel like an exotic mountain version of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Do not stop by the mirror and think too hard about it. Upload the most energetic music you possess into your car’s CD player. Upon arriving at the gas station, use the gardening glove you carry around as protection against germs while you fill your car with gas. Stop by Dunkin for an iced latte with your mask on. You’ll need caffeine if your spirits flag on the drive to meet up with your sweetheart.
Next, turn the music way up, sing loudly to Billy Strings and end each song with a euphoric curse. Drive too fast over Old Fort Mountain. Look at face mask and say “@#$% it” - make it to Morganton in record time.
As you pull up to your sweetheart’s house, try to remember what the tears were for. Forget everything when you see him coming to you. Hug, kiss, and repeat.
Recipe for Raising a Fist
From The Pandemic Cookbook for Seniors
Submitted by Stephanie Biziewski
Ingredients:
Leftovers from previous administration:
1 hollowed-out Senate Majority Leader
1 Black Lives Matter group
18,000 false/misleading claims
3 miles of completed border wall
1 record-breaking stock market
1 planet in climate distress
2 anti-choice SCOTUS confirmations
1 coronavirus (no herd immunity)
1 bunch of variegated threats toward nuclear-armed foreign countries
1 thick-as-thieves blend of assorted cabinet members, chiefs of staff, press secretaries,
advisors, counselors, ambassadors, and other political appointees of your choosing
1 email list
1 face mask
OPTIONAL
1 poster board, bright color optional
2 colored magic markers, wide tipped
1 slogan appropriate for racial justice movement
1 stick
Cut roots off first 10 ingredients and combine. Call, email, write Congress members, sign petitions, attend demonstrations while mixture simmers during POTUS’ first 3 years in office.
Top with pandemic. Season with frustration and confusion till smell becomes unsavory.
Continue to heat. As mixture boils and thickens into stew, loosen self from TV, newspapers, other media outlets. Open email with details for daily 9:30 A.M. Seniors’ Vigil.
Skim fat from surface of mixture. Place in blender, process till smooth and tangy. Let stand.
OPTIONALLY Make “Black Lives Matter” poster. See Recipe for A Protest Sign.
Pack protective mask and poster in car. Drive downtown, park. Show up at Pack Square.
To blend with small crowd, introduce self to other elders. Garnish with social distancing.
To serve, first step up to curb, let motorists and passers-by get a whiff.
NOTE: some drivers look away, some snarl or shout, some honk, others show thumbs up.
Generously sprinkle some servings with hand waving.
Slice hate remarks with open-palmed, two-fingered peace sign.
For those who prefer more zest, raise a fist.
Yield: hundreds of servings, each prepared for individual taste.
Recipe for Dead Cat in Winter
Submitted by Jean Peelen
Ingredients:
1 cat
1 thoughtless husband
1 fourth floor apartment
1 open window
1 pizza restaurant freezer
1 food inspector
1 tiny coffin, with small window for viewing
1 crying daughter
1 national park
1 shovel
1 boom box
Appropriate music (e.g., “Over the Rainbow” preferably by Judy Garland)
One minister (or reasonable facsimile)
Frozen ground
Directions:
This recipe can only work if the husband who scared the cat out of the fourth-floor window truly did it by mistake. If not a mistake, divorce husband immediately.
Place cat in freezer in a friend’s restaurant to wait for spring burial. Do not tell restaurant employees.
If/when notified by restaurant that city inspectors are coming, retrieve frozen cat as quickly as possible.
Have carpenter friend build small, adorable coffin.
Take crying daughter, frozen cat, coffin, shovel, and boom box, to a national park. Put cat in coffin. If cat is frozen with legs sticking out, and won’t fit into coffin, either wait for it to thaw or break its legs.
Once cat is thawed, fold legs gently into coffin. Dig hole in frozen ground. If that proves challenging, make crying daughter ask passers-by to help.
Play “Over the Rainbow” on the boom box. If minister fails to appear, pretend to be one and say appropriate words over dead cat. You should avoid words like “thrown,” “window,” and “stupid fool.”
Get daughter another cat asap.
Recipe for Pickling Family Pathology when Daughter’s New Boyfriend- Who’s Not Southern-Moves In for Ten Weeks
Submitted by Mary Mac Ogden
Serves at least four but can accommodate up to ten
Time: approximately as long as it takes to pretend what you are doing is normal
Do consider the altitude when preparing because the higher the better…
Ingredients:
Umpteen Cases of Cabernet
Numerous Handles of Woodford Reserve, crushed ice, lemon slices
At least one SONOS speaker
Cribbage, or at least a show of intellectual boardgames
Netflix and Apple TV
Patience
Etiquette
Groceries
A guest room far from your daughter’s bedroom
Toilet Paper
Laundry detergent
A Room to Vent at Family far from earshot of the guest
Brillo pads to clean up after boyfriend cooks bacon or anything with oil
Dairy free creamer, butter, milk and foodstuffs for lactose intolerant company
- Fix one high ball of bourbon, preferably Woodford Reserve but Jack Daniels will do, add crushed ice and a slice of lemon—sip constantly—or a 6-ounce glass of Cabernet, drink at least one serving; refill as needed—Blast SONOS for party people appearance
- Sprinkle with patience, especially when guests sleep past noon, expect breakfast when it is clearly lunchtime or fail to put the toilet seat down in the hall bathroom and use a cup or two of etiquette when enraged once the welcome has worn out; be aware that the new normal costs pampered college students a pound of emotion
- Strip bedlinens often despite the impeccable state of the guestroom sheets; wash your daughter’s with Clorox as they remain rumpled, crumpled and apparently used throughout the day for reasons unacceptable to a southern mother
- Stir emotions until a smile rises to the top when the kitchen devolves into a grease spattered, dirty dish covered, nasty floor spattered room after the boyfriend-we-do-not-know-well-at-all insists on cooking dinner each night at a really, really late hour
- Scrub said room with Brillo pads at midnight (or once guests leave the mess behind) to keep up appearance of a hidden staff in the house that constantly cleans
- Add a dash of exasperation when said boyfriend reveals lactose intolerance; replace exasperation with shock as the big reveal occurs after a huge grocery run and during taco Tuesday topped with sour cream, cheese and ice cream
- Add copious rolls of toilet paper; southerners who wipe with Kleenex or paper towels fit stereotypes commonly held by non-southern boyfriend
- Pay subscription fees to Netflix and Apple—apps that don’t work prove stereotypes held by non-southern boyfriend
- Act intelligent when playing Cribbage despite taxing verbiage and requisite sobriety; intellectual boardgames are the specialty of boyfriend, and playing dumb games reinforce said stereotypes of southerners
- Yell softly at the family in area far from the earshot of guest when not performing at expected level; diffuse family fights with drunken laughter, excessive laughter and/or hysterical laughter
- Spend money even when broke because a pretty lie is far better than the ugly truth—southern pathology 101
- Blend all pathological behavior together, put it in a bowl, cover and let ferment
Recipe for Stressed Out Retail Workers During a Pandemic
Submitted by Whitney Setser
Ingredients:
1 Retail Furniture Chain Store Going Bankrupt
A large can of Shortened Hours of Operation
A shot of Store and County-Wide Ordinance Requiring Facial Coverings
2 Full-Time Managers who “Can’t even”
3 Part-Time Employees who “Are ready to walk out if they receive any more mask lectures”
Up to 25 Customers at a time
A smattering of Unsolicited Political Commentary
A heaping pile of Impatience and Annoyance
A pinch of Entitlement
Place all Employees and Customers inside the Furniture Store together. Mix in the Store/County Mask Ordinance and lightly sift in the Shortened Hours of Operation. Separate two Employees: one to count the number of people in the store (to make any customers over the number 25 wait outside) and another to alert everyone that there is a requirement to wear a face covering while inside the store. Resist the urge to sprinkle middle fingers into this mixture no matter how tempting, as THIS IS NOT IN THE INGREDIENT LIST.
Put the remaining Employees and Customers into a food processor, leaving the lid off. Turn on high. Attempt to drop in Unsolicited Political Commentary, Impatience, Annoyance and Entitlement and VOILA, a huge mess! Best served if thrown in massive dumpster fire immediately.
Recipe for a Disastrous at Home Date During the Pandemic
Submitted by Stephany Newberry-Davis
Ingredients:
1 Netflix Documentary
1 wife who should know better
1 jealous husband
1 cheap bottle of wine
Rent the documentary Have a Great Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics from Netflix. Talk about your experiences versus Sting’s, who thinks that LSD is the answer to most world problems. Mention the time you tripped with the cute, hippie boy who sat behind you in the Natural Resource Management class and smelled like patchouli and cloves. Caution: When husband asks if you ever hooked with said hippie boy, remind yourself it’s been twenty years and you’re a mother now and you tell your children to always tell the truth or else you’ll have nightmares of your teeth falling out. So, yes. You did hook up with the hippie boy several times while on a break from your then-boyfriend, now-husband. Warning: Don’t stress the word several while confessing your infidelities. Stick to the script previously written for Ross in the Friends episode "The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break": “We were on a break.” When asked for specifics, avoid details at all costs. Don’t tell your husband about the time behind the grilled cheese tent at that Widespread Panic show or that time you spent your tips from Grouper Nancy’s Seafood Restaurant and Banquet Hall on the most expensive tequila at the Harris Teeter and drank it until you and the cute hippie boy had Bob Marley’s proverbial Soul Shakedown. Tell your husband such things don’t matter anymore and as discreetly as possible remove the bottle of wine sitting on the coffee table so that he doesn’t drink another glass or decide to throw it at your head while the kids sleep upstairs. Try to change the subject. Divert his attention to the positive things happening. Talk about how much weight he’s lost since the pandemic and how great he looks. Ignore the fact that he’s gained a few pounds. Tell him that he should call his mother to come visit, even though you don’t need an enabler in the house that still calls her 45-year-old-son “Little Pumpkin.” Let him know how excited you are that you found toilet paper on Amazon Prime and bought a gallon of Ethyl Alcohol from Bulk Apothecary to make homemade hand sanitizer. And if none of those things work, insist that he be permitted to “escape” from his life and allow him to spend the next week manually removing the stumps in the backyard, drinking the stockpile of beer you’ve insisted on having for the pandemic, while you single-handedly feed and bathe seven little ones. When your husband crawls into son’s bed, remind yourself that revenge is best served cold.
From the kitchen with love: Recipe for Pandemic Life Turnovers with Whipped Awakened Topping and Covid Coo Coo Sprinkles
Submitted by Reverend Sara Judy
Ingredients for Pandemic Life Turnovers:
1 Menopausal Woman who’s an Empath
1 Collective energy shift of the planet
4 part time jobs
17 heartbroken brides
1 Elderly Mother
1 Elderly Trump supporting Father
1 Elderly Trump supporting Mother in law
1 Single Parent Neighbor who decides to open a nursery for compromised 3-4 year olds in her adjoining backyard at the beginning of the Pandemic
Ingredients for Whipped Awakened topping:
1 husband who rises to the occasion, builds a beautiful flower and fresh food garden and is able to continue his work
1 daily meditation practice and a long walk in nature
1 writing of book and writing class started
A pinch of therapy
1 generous pour of Zoom wine group with girlfriends
1 local wine store that knows fully menopausal empath woman by name and make of her car for her social distanced trunk pickups
In a really large mixing bowl, blend menopausal woman with the collective energy shift of the planet in a pandemic. This will help grow her commitment to either sustaining patience or avoiding going bat shit crazy.
Reduce her income by removing all 4 of her part time jobs in 1 week and leave her to console 17 heartbroken brides who have now rescheduled their weddings a year later.
In a separate medium sized bowl, beat in 1 Elderly Mother who gets stranded in her home overseas and is now losing vision in one eye because she had to miss her doctor’s appointment when her flight back to the US is cancelled with 1 Elderly Trump supporting father, who has no lymph nodes after surviving melanoma, who thinks since the president doesn’t wear a mask, it must be okay to eat dinner indoors at a restaurant and join family gatherings indoors of course, add 1 Elderly Trump supporting Mother in law, who watches Fox news all day who shares the truth of what’s “really” happening in the world. Fold in 1 single parent neighbor who decides to open a nursery for compromised 3-4 year olds in her adjoining backyard with evening pickup gatherings for the parents to drink, avoid any social distance and hold each other’s compromised children.
Beat really well. Now is a great time to thicken the batter with some racial injustice and bake for at least a century if not longer.
The whipped awakened topping is a cinch:
Simply, whip together on high speed till a fluffy yet firm consistency the following:
1 husband who rises to the occasion, builds a beautiful flower and fresh food garden and is able to continue his work
1 daily meditation practice and a long walk in nature
1 writing of book and writing class started
A pinch of therapy
1 generous pour of zoom wine group with girlfriends
1 local wine store that knows fully menopausal empath by name and make of her car for her social distanced trunk pickups
Serving suggestions:
Dust the plate with Sahara Storm Dust, place warmed Pandemic Life Turnovers on top then dollop with a generous portion of the whipped awakened topping and Garnish with Covid coo coo sprinkles. They will add texture and color to this enlightened dessert!
Remember to pray, and Enjoy!