Diary of a Loaf | Paid Sick Leave | Recipe: Pasta Puttanesca
Issue No. 34
In this week’s edition, Jackie self-quarantines and passes the time by making bread for herself. Also, a breakdown of the debate around paid sick leave and a tantalizing recipe with a saucy name.
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Three Days of Bread-Making: A Diary from Self-Quarantine
Friday, March 20th, 2020 | 7:13 pm
I took a mental health day today. On Monday we got word from the New York office that the artists would be sent home early. I totally get it, but it was still a heartbreaking week. I have the next three days off, and all I want to do is cook and eat and read “Kindred” in the hammock and maybe take a bike ride if I’m feeling a burst of energy.
I’m excited to bake for myself this weekend. Can’t remember the last time I baked a loaf just for me...probably 7 years? I’m going to document each step on Instagram, and hopefully nudge a few people to start their own.
This afternoon I transferred a few necessary items from my work kitchen to my apartment and fed my sourdough starter. About to feed it again for its slow overnight rise. And then I will do virtual karaoke with my girlfriends via a free trial of the Smule app
Virtual Karaoke Song of the Day: “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille
Saturday, March 21st | 2:28 pm
I decided to make two doughs: a white whole wheat and a rye-whole wheat blend with beer, a whole mess of seeds, and leftover quinoa. All flour is from Carolina Ground in Asheville. A new batch just arrived last week, and I’m super glad I stocked up before they had to close the mill for the time being.
I fell into a dough mixing trance this morning, then spent the day checking in with family, watching television (hot take! The latest episode of “Brooklyn 99” is a series best) and knitting. I find knitting relaxing, but I can’t bring myself to count stitches or follow patterns. So I always end up unraveling whatever I’m making halfway through in a fit of frustration. Very Sisyphean, I know, but it passes the time.
After a six-hour first rise, the loaves are shaped and tucked in all cozy for their overnight rest in the fridge. Gonna make quesadillas and spend the afternoon outside.
Virtual Karaoke Song of the Day: “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls
Sunday, March 22nd | 12:37 pm
I start most mornings reading a daily meditation from a Franciscan priest named Richard Rohr. I found these words from today’s email to be a beautiful and challenging call to arms in defense of kindness and compassion:
When we carry our own suffering in solidarity with humanity’s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. It is just as hard for everybody else, and our healing is bound up in each other’s. Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don’t know it. This realization softens the space around our overly-defended hearts. It makes it hard to be cruel to anyone. It somehow makes us one — in a way that easy comfort and entertainment never can.
I took a lovely bike ride to deliver a couple freshly baked loaves to a Captiva neighbor, then made lunch (bread with tomatoes, cheese, and honey). Overall, I’m pleased with the flavor and texture of the bread. The white whole wheat is an excellent balance of sweet and sour. What my British friends might adorably call moreish. The rye-beer-quinoa bread is pretty wild. On the extreme end of sour.
Baking sourdough is just the sort of grounding practice I need right now. When my hands are busy, my brain can slow down. Also, overdoing it on carbs feels like the correct choice. If you’re interested in baking bread, now is the moment to make yourself a sourdough starter.
Virtual Karaoke Song of the Day: “We Belong” by Pat Benetar
love,
Jackie
What’s the song you keep singing to keep yourself sane? Tell us at sunshineandmicrobes@gmail.com. Then, share this newsletter with a friend.
What’s Stewing in the Food World?
Health Benefits for Food Workers
Fear of losing a paycheck or the job itself forces many people to come to work while feeling less than 💯.That’s especially problematic for food producers. Nobody wants a server running a fever.
According to the NY Times, “studies show that paying for sick employees to stay home significantly reduces the spread of the seasonal flu.” Still, it’s not fair to blame the employee who gets by each week on tipped wages. The coronavirus pandemic has brought this issue to the forefront as the sickness devastates the restaurant industry and leaves many people who live paycheck-to-paycheck out of work. A major failure of the first coronavirus-related bill passed by Congress is that it did not provide sick leave for workers at companies with more than 500 employees. Lawmakers let some of the richest companies off the hook, like Amazon and McDonald’s.
Here’s one McDonald’s manager bravely speaking out about that policy:
Thanks to journalist Judd Legum’s newsletter Popular Information, some companies like Kroger’s and Darden Restaurants (parent company of the Olive Garden) have bowed to pressure to expand sick leave policies. (For what it’s worth, Legum praised Publix for having one of the most impressive coronavirus sick leave policies. ).
Still, many food businesses continue to resist offering better health benefits to their employees who are on the front-lines of the pandemic. Even when the worst of COVID-19 has passed, food workers will still feel obligated to go to work when under the weather as long as their paycheck depends on it. Universal paid sick leave (and healthcare for that matter) is a worthy goal -- not only for protecting workers, but to safeguard communities from infections spread by people who can’t afford to stay home.
-Matt
Going Live!
Virtual Sunday Brunch
Got questions about bread-making, food preservation or quarantine cooking? Join @sunshineandmicrobes on Instagram Live for a virtual brunch and Q&A on Sunday at 10 a.m. ET.
Jackie will teach her technique for making a perfect fried egg while answering any questions you got for her about cooking in quarantine. Tell your friends!
Fresh links
🥄Beans, Coronavirus, and The Future | New Republic
As the world hunkers down during the COVID-19 pandemic, many forward-looking people have come to see the outbreak as a dress rehearsal for another impending global crisis: climate change. Libby Watson writes that a bean boom is under way. That’s no surprise since they “are cheap, last a long time on the shelf, and versatile” and “make a comforting stew or soup.” She acknowledges that planet-friendly bean buying won’t save the planet. But it's a useful reminder for those Americans not living hand-to-mouth that “devouring resources is not the only way to live life.”
Fighting climate change will mean learning to consume less, waste less, and encouraging policies that allow for that. When post-coronavirus peacetime is here, one lesson that Watson hopes people will carry over is to live a little more simply.
If you are safe and provided-for in this crisis and have felt any sort of peace in the quiet indoor life of the last weeks—in cooking beans instead of grabbing an unsatisfying burger or in innovating new ways to spend time with friends—hold onto it. The future will have to look different and has never felt less certain. But if we get through this crisis, let’s hope we will have learned that a life without voracious consumption is nothing to fear. It is something to demand.
💩🚽Social Distancing Diaries: Cut the Crap and Embrace the Bidet | The Ringer
There is such a (totally unnecessary) hoarding of toilet paper occurring in the country that a site called howmuchtoiletpaper.com has popped up to help those running low to figure out how many squares they can still spare.
But there is another solution — one of Sunshine + Microbes pet issues — leave toilet rolls behind and get a bidet. The sports and pop culture site The Ringer, with little sports or pop culture to write about these days, published an ode to the bidet this week.
Bidet sales have been soaring since the recent TP-inspired panic. And Ben Lindbergh gives a rundown on what makes a bidet superior. Sure, it’s nice they’re eco-friendly. But also modern day bidets can come with fancy features like a “heated seat, heated water, a dryer, and a night light.” How can anyone resist?
👯♀️Out-of-work Strippers Deliver Food through Boober Eats | The Oregonian
Oregon has joined most of the U.S. in shutting down nonessential establishments, including strip clubs. But the Lucky Devil Lounge in Portland also serves food, and as a way to prevent owner Shon Boulden from laying off everyone who works there, the strip club has pivoted to delivery.
Strippers are considered independent contractors and “typically aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits.” Approximately 25 of the club's 80 dancers now deliver food. Even with the delivery jobs, dancers went “from making several hundred dollars a night to earning close to minimum wage.”
Boulden is trying to employ everyone at the new business. Bartenders take orders. Security guards serve as drivers for the so-called Boober Eats and dancers bring the meal to your doorstep (Pandemic or not, the no touching rule always applies).
“Losing this job is devastating,” said Kiki, who started her first Boober shift Friday. “For the majority of us, it’s been an almost complete loss of income. I’m here supporting my community and trying to keep maintaining an income flow as best as we can.”
The Oregonian also made a short video about Boober Eats, which perhaps not surprisingly has almost 2 million views. Content Warning: Adult Themes
Pasta Puttanesca
As a child, my favorite snack was licking a pile of salt out of the palm of my hand. So it makes sense that puttanesca is my pasta sauce of choice — it’s an ode to the wonders of salt.
The recipe takes basic tomato sauce and revs it up with anchovies, garlic, chili flakes, capers, and olives. I add beans to mine, which I recommend). The whole dish can be made with non-perishables, making it an excellent quarantine meal. But feel free to throw in any fresh veggies that are lying around.
Fun Fact to Impress Your Friends During Virtual Happy Hours: “Putta” is italiano for prostitute. Some say the name comes from its pungent aromas 😉. Others say it was a staple served after services rendered at Neapolitan brothels.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
1/2 pound pasta (I like rigatoni for this sauce)
1 12 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 cup cooked white beans, such as cannellini (cook dried beans or use canned. Be sure to rinse canned beans of their goo.)
2-3 cloves garlic, roughly chop
3-4 anchovy fillets (optional, but you really should...)
handful of olives, roughly chopped
palmful of capers
red chili flakes
olive oil
salt
honey (or sugar or maple syrup)
optional: cooked veggies like green beans or broccoli
optional: fresh basil and/or dried oregano
optional: parmesan
Step-by-step
In a pot large enough to fit all the pasta, warm a glug of olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic. Once it starts to smell fragrant — but well before it turns brown — add anchovies , a generous pinch (or three) of red chili flakes, and a generous pinch of dried oregano. After another minute or two of sizzling, add the crushed tomatoes. Turn heat up to medium high. Add a glug of honey and a small pinch of salt. Be conservative with salting, as the other ingredients will add plenty of saltiness to the sauce. Allow the sauce to simmer and thicken over medium heat while the pasta cooks.
To cook pasta, bring a large pot of water to boil. Once it boils, add enough salt to the water so that it tastes like the ocean. Cook pasta until al dente. Strain, saving 1 cup of pasta cooking water.
Stir in to sauce the pasta cooking water, olives, and capers. Allow to cook for a minute of two. Taste and adjust as needed (Too acidic? Add more honey. Too salty? More pasta water).
Add beans, pasta, and veggies to sauce. Stir and cook for a few more minutes, so the pasta absorbs the flavor of the sauce.
Serve with freshly grated parmesan and torn pieces of fresh basil.
Hot tip: have some crusty bread on hand to sop up extra sauce.
When you get really, really, really, really, really bored in quarantine:
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment, and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.