To help inspire people staying at home to go beyond the usual with their home-cooked meals, I’m starting a regular series of photos on the topic.
Today’s lunch was this salad with cabbage and lettuce, dried quinoa, sunflower seeds, a little shredded mozzarella, honey-mustard dressing, and Trader Joe’s “Everything But the Bagel” seasoning. Surrounding it is some salami-wrapped mozzarella. I added a hard-boiled egg to this mix after taking this photo (a last-minute addition). I made the same for Anitra, who’s also working from home.
Yesterday, I posted photos of my front porch home office on my tech blog Global Nerdy. The porch is my home office for the duration of social distancing. Anitra also works from home, and since her work requires her to be in teleconference meetings way more than mine, she has a much greater claim to the home office. Besides, Florida is lovely in March, and the view is spectacular!
I’ve seen a number of Facebook posts asking people to post the nth photo from their phone‘s camera roll, usually as a way to get a break from all the COVID-19 news. I thought I’d offer some photos to help.
Where I work — Lilypad — the development team has a daily stand-up meeting every morning. For those of you who aren’t familiar with agile practices, a daily stand-up is a short meeting where the members of a team take turns telling the others what they accomplished yesterday, the tasks they plan to take on today, and if there are any impediments in their way. It helps to ensure that the team know what’s going on, and it helps keep them coordinated.
Akira, our scrum master (an agile team facilitator) is ill, and when that happens, I step in as Pretend Scrum Master. We’ve been holding the daily stand-up remotely via Google Hangouts, and I’ve been doing it with video as I stand in our front yard. It makes for a lovely backdrop.
I know this from my own experience as a developer evangelist: doing good work is important, but doing it in style gets the work noticed. Our Mom is a sharp dresser and so was Dad, and it’s a lesson that we both took to heart. For me, it’s nice shirts and the accordion, and for Eileen, it’s splendiferous scarves. At every news conference — and she’s been doing one daily for the past little while — she wears a different scarf.
Compared to all that, social distancing and sheltering in place, with working power, air conditioning, internet, running water, and being able to go outside (as long as we maintain distance) is a cakewalk.
In these times of social distancing and a possible shelter-in-place order coming soon, it’s important to remember that your local small business needs you more than ever. Support them, and if you’re on social media, share your support with the hashtag #SmallBusinessStrong.
I’m subscribed to a number of Facebook pages for my neighborhood of Seminole Heights, and a number of people have talked about which stores are still stocked with which items. They’ve only talked about more “basic” places: Publix, Winn-Dixie, Walmart, and the like.
There are a number of them in or near Seminole Heights, a couple of which are House of Meats and Huracan, both of which are on Sligh between Florida and Nebraska, just west of 275.
House of Meats, as its name implies, has a lot of meat, some of which has been packaged up, and some you can order straight from the butcher’s counter. You can get your standard beef, chicken, and pork cuts, as well as stuff like goat, rabbit, chitterlings, hooves, and other stuff that might send your more basic friends screaming to run to the comfort of a Pumpkin Spice Latte or a White Claw.
House of Meats. Tap the photo to see it at full size.
Five bucks will get you pretty far here — that got me a pack of eight hefty bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, and another fiver got me a pound and a half of pork rib meat.
In addition to all that meat, House of Meats has a great selection of vegetables, especially frozen ones, as well as a lot of canned goods and Latino bread.
House of Meats. Tap the photo to see it at full size.
Across Central Avenue from House of Meats is Huracan, which also has a butcher shop, and a lot of fruit and veg. I get my yellow plantains here.
I read that some of you were looking for eggs and that Publix has been running out with all the COVID-19 panic buying. There are huevos aplenty at Huracan, as well as cheese, some tasty flan, and tres leches cake, too!
Huracan. Tap the photo to see it at full size.
And when it comes to shelf-stable protein, you can’t beat beans, which take up an entire aisle at Huracan. White beans, pink beans, butterbeans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas), pigeon peas — they have these and more, in both canned and dry form:
Huracan. Tap the photo to see it at full size.
So if you’re still stocking up your fridge, freezer, and pantry, give your local small business some love. And if you’re near a bodega but never go, don’t be so basic — break out of your comfort zone and check them out!
