The pandemic is getting worse according to a front page story in the New York Times. Next to the story about Juneteenth in Tulsa.
I read about it over my breakfast of warm buttery croissant that my husband brought home from a French-people-run bakery called Le Bec Sucre in nearby Middletown, Rhode Island . The name means sweet tooth in French, or literally, sugared beak. Smelling the warm dough and watching the delicate flakes fall onto my plate are enough to recall enjoying a patisserie breakfast in France. It's especially nice to savor after waiting outside in line, wearing masks, six feet apart, only 2 people in the store at a time.
But I digress. We are finishing up the third month of living surrounded by deadly COVID-19, stunning unemployment, and the agonizing unraveling of America.
Surrounded by sorrow and tinges of fear, nevertheless, we still must decide what to put on the table to eat.
My choice is to savor every meal. I figure if I didn't do that, I'd be letting life slip by. I look at every day as a gift. I'm the kind of person who prefers setting the table with platters and serving pieces, not takeout boxes. Even when we buy the food prepared from a restaurant, I like to detour it onto a serving plate, making it look inviting. I frequently think of my mother who used to say, "Why not live beautifully?" Her thickly floral sterling flatware lives in my kitchen drawer and I use it all the time. Why not? What would I be saving it for?
The day that started with flaky croissant decorated with a peony from my garden ended with lobster on the grill. Because why not? We live in the Rhode Island with its well-deserved name, the Ocean State. Lobsters were on sale for $5.99 each, and besides, I wanted to try grilling them instead of the same old, same old way of steaming or boiling them. More on the grill caper later.