Yesterday

I made bagels.

With Everything But
The Bagel seasoning

I used a recipe from Skinnytaste (hate the name, but there are some good recipes on her site)—it’s not a traditional bagel recipe. Instead you use Greek yogurt (she is very clear that regular yogurt won’t work), baking powder and then bake, not boil, the bagels. The comments ranged from “best bagel ever!” to “the outside baked just fine but the inside was still doughy” and everything in between.

I followed one tip, I weighed the flour instead of just measuring it. But I had a hard time getting exactly one cup of Greek yogurt because I had to scoop it out of my individual yogurt containers (I have one a day at breakfast, and since they are not quite six ounces each, I had to use one plus part of another—I did my best). I also baked them for about five minutes longer than indicated. Next time I think I’d drop the heat to 350 and bake even longer.

We each had one this morning and they were pretty good. I always slice and toast my bagels and then put butter on it, and that's what I did for ours today. I really like that they aren’t gigantic, most store-bought bagels are so big you could practically use them as spare tires for your car. 

My COVID 19 efforts

Once the Kansas City metro area (both sides of the state line!) issued the stay at home order and also ordered non-essential businesses to shutter, I realized that this pandemic was going to crush most small businesses. As with the staffing model change at work, I can’t save everyone but knew I could do something to help.

First up, our cat sitter. She does an amazing job, this is her only source of income and we have been so glad to have her take care of our sometime obnoxious cats. The first week of the stay at home order, we sent her $100 via her normal payment route. Last week, she sent out a fund-raising campaign with t shirts, so we’ve ordered two. While neither of those amounts will replace her lost income, I hope it helps some.

Easter dinner

Next the restaurant where we had my incredible surprise 60th birthday dinner—Affäre. Like many restaurants in the area, they immediately shifted to curbside pick-up for a set menu. We’ve gotten dinner there twice, and then ordered our Easter meal shown from them too (shown in this photo). We can’t order from them every week, it’s not cheap so not really in our budget, but I know it’s helped and they’ve been clear with all their customers how moved they are by the support.

Masks in progress last week

Finally, fabric masks. I joked around a couple of years ago with a friend who is somewhat of an end-time prepper—she’d said that people with skills would be welcome at their “compound” when the apocalypse comes. I told her then that Kent and I both sew and she was lukewarm about whether that skill counted as essential during those end times. Joke’s on her, it definitely counts.

We’ve already made and distributed about 40 fabric masks and I’ve got another 22 cut and partially assembled. No, these aren’t the same quality as the N-95 masks but I’ve made them with fabric that has a very high thread count and they’re lined. Most have ties, the child masks have elastic so they stay on. As I told someone  who tried to thank me for making her family masks—hey, I can do this bit of good, so I am.