One of the foods I most closely associate with Early Pandemic is Nature Valley's sweet and salty peanut bars. This time two years ago I ordered them repeatedly from Target, along with cleaning supplies and several pairs of Stars Above pajamas. Why I thought this was important, I will never know. I guess it is just one of those things where you buy stuff to solve problems. (This is an experiment I’m always running; I’ll let you know if the results are ever conclusive.)
Recently I included these candy bars (face it they are candy) in a grocery order, I guess out of nostalgia (haha) or more likely just garden variety Grocery Boredom that happens every now and then. I am guilty of ordering the same blocks of cheese, the same crackers, the same four Gala (or Fuji! whatever is $1.99 a pound!) apples to make up a week of WFH lunches and snacks. I mostly cannot be arsed to do anything more effortful than this. At least there is a FRUIT involved!
There is a woman I follow on Instagram because I like that she seems to earn a living trawling Amazon for pink or white or rose gold gadgets to junk up her house, but sometimes she will also post a story that says something like “Simple Snack.” This is followed by short videos in which she slices artisan bread with a pink ceramic knife, gently paints it with olive oil using a white silicone basting brush, grills the bread in a blush-pink nonstick skillet, spreads it with ricotta cheese, drizzles it with honey, chops up strawberries and places them on the cheese-covered bread, and then lastly, daintily sprinkles the whole construction with balsamic vinegar dispensed from a rose gold cruet. This is obviously completely insane, not terribly simple, and affiliate-linked to high heaven, but definitely something I will watch two or three times.
I have also found several genuinely good salad recipes reposted on Instagram Reels, and while I grimly suspect these are sourced from a corner of TikTok that recruits people into eating disorder cults, I am nonetheless always down for a good salad featuring lots of textures and high marks across the salt/fat/acid/heat matrix. The season of Let’s Not Use The Oven is coming soon and I need to have my salad game ON LOCK. Who better than an internet person called “curlyfitmom” (a real human!!!!) to guide me.
Speaking of social media, I let myself get back on Twitter when the Ukraine invasion happened, but the Oscars and Will Smith gave me cause to delete it again. Almost every single tweet I read (important to include: mine also) is dumber than the last and it’s clear that the majority of us are not okay and in many cases, entirely too far up our own buttonholes. Maybe we can all delete Twitter? If you can manage to use it responsibly go with god, honey, but I am not up to the task.