Plague 16: aviation cocktail. Macaroni and cheese, yu xiang broccoli, rice.
Also prepped duck confit and started curing a brisket for Passover. Ordered supplies from D’Artagnan, who are sending a whole truck to North Of Boston next week.
Known in English as The Restaurant, an intriguing historical fiction about Sweden in the postwar years. Influenced by Downton Abbey from its theme music to its tendency to overplot, the contrasts of this superbly-acted show are fascinating. It’s also very sad and deeply troubling, en route to explaining how Sweden became what it is.
Braised beef chuck with tomatoes and mushrooms, mashed russet potatoes with sour cream and butter. Chataeux de Birot Côtes de Bordeaux. Pumpkin pie.
That was the last of the pumpkin pie. It may be some time before the next pie, as our butter reserves are far from ample. This morning I began curing a brisket for pastrami and prepped duck legs for confit; we should have procured more duck legs when we had the chance.
These meals are not dietetic. Right now, I’m guessing that the short-term advantages of being well nourished before we catch the plague outweigh the risks of heart disease. If we don’t survive the coming weeks, the long range doesn't matter.
The ghastly numbers that Trump and Gov. Baker are repeating may be wildly optimistic.
Let’s say you own a little restaurant. COVID has slammed you: you have no customers, you can’t do business. So, you furlough everyone. You’ve still got to pay rent, and you’ve got a walk-in filled with food that’s going to top bad or be given away, but you still have to pay for it.
So, the business declares bankruptcy and you start over when everyone is better. If not you, someone will open a new restaurant in the old space. Right?
Maybe not. The problem is, a lot of money just went up in smoke. All that food you’d ordered? Gone. You’ve got maybe 100 grand tied up in decorations and painting and menus and signage: that’s as gone as the spoilt food. Lots of equipment that was good for you won’t be good for whatever comes next: the chairs that looked just right for you are all wrong for the next place. So they get sold for salvage. Other equipment doesn’t hold up well for weeks or months of disuse; it will need to be repaired or replaced.
The time and money you spent getting permits and inspections for the kitchen, the fire suppressants, the zoning waiver: the new place will have to do it all again.
You spent a lot of time and a lot of money recruiting good staff. Some will come back, but some won’t. Some will be dead. You aren’t recouping the employment agency fees or the training expenses or the costs when you hired someone who turned out to be inept or dishonest: you’re paying those costs again if you want to reopen.
And over the years, you’ve sunk lots of money into building customers and goodwill. You’ve given out coupons for meals at cost or below cost, because maybe those people will come back. You’ve sponsored little league teams and farmers’ markets and school contests and restaurant week and Taste Of Wherever The Hell You Are. You’ve done email and direct mail and maybe radio, and you've had a freelance publicist nobble the food writers and you’ve had someone build your a Web site. All that’s up in smoke, too.
Which means that not only is your chef looking for work: your publicist and your accountant and your menu printer are all looking for new clients. Finding clients is expensive. And each of them has rent to pay.
So neither you nor your accountant are going to be flying to many professional conferences anytime soon. And that hurts hotels, and restaurants, and airlines, and Uber drivers.
It’s not just restaurants, though restaurants are easier to understand. It’s medical practices and PR agencies and boutique hotels. It’s booksellers and gift shops and art galleries.
The Depression started with markets, but the real problem was destroyed business investment. In 1929, it was industrial plant that was suddenly surplus to our needs. This time in the US, we don’t have so much industrial plant: this time it’s the service industry.
We’re in a hell of a fix.
Picadillo, roasted brown butter cauliflower, pumpkin pie.
Now, locals are talking about a big fucking arts project for coronavirus.
Folks: work today to save people. You can make art later to commemorate your failures.
Plague dinner 13: baba ganoush, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie.
The important thing about Mac and Cheese is the sauce soubise. Roux, milk, some cream. Heat to thicken. Add in a caramelized onion and a lot of cheese — I used some Monterey Jack and some artisanal American Gouda-alike. Pulverise with an immersion blender, season with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and a little hot pepper.
Our local officials are tirelessly sitting on their hands. I’ve done what I could.
Plague dinner 12: xinjiang cumin lamb. White rice. Pumpkin pie.
Ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your country.
We need tests, ICU beds, ventilators, and replacement medics. Right here, in perhaps 19 days.
I cannot understand the prevailing indifference and neglect.
Plague dinner 11: Slow-roasted cauliflower. Toasted orzo in brown butter. Braised chuck. Chocolate pots de crême.
First project for the Tinderbox COVID-19 project: helping with a tool for daily staff reports for a distributed mobile health service. Good to be of use.
Locally, our officials seem to be sitting on their hands, waiting for the end. Some assure me that much is being done invisibly. What that is meaningful could at this point be done invisibly? We need more ICU beds, more ventilators, and a plan to care for people when many doctors and nurses are sick or dead.
Three weeks from today. Perhaps sooner.
Plague dinner 10. Homemade baba ganoush, picadillo de Oaxaca, Bordeaux blanc. Salad, brownies.
In five weeks, every school kid will know the quiz question: What was the greatest catastrophe in the history of Malden? Answer: The plague of 2020. Yet, it appears we are doing little or nothing to prepare.
I cannot understand this.
We should be building ventilators. We should be building hospitals. We should be training medics.
We have perhaps 15 days.
Plague dinner 9: cheese enchiladas, green chili sauce. Margarita/white lady. Brownies.
I called the city health department 36 hours ago to ask how I could help. They have not condescended to reply. City officials appear to be sitting on their hands to await God’s wrath, or expecting someone else to take care of the big things — PPE, ventilators, ICU beds, replacement caregivers to step in for those who will fall.
I cannot fathom this.
We should be building ventilators. We should be building hospitals. We should be training medics. We have perhaps 16 days.
Plague dinner 8: Dan Dan noodles, cold roasted chicken, Picpoul de Pinet. Chocolate pots de crême. The noodles were a bit too spicy but paired wonderfully with the Picpoul.
Michigan is preparing to ration ventilators. New York is overwhelmed. People are dying in chairs, waiting to be seen in the ER.
Trump admin cancelled an order to make 20,000 ventilators, claiming they won’t be needed. Trump disputing NY ventilator shortage.
Right wing trolls spreading misinterpretations of epidemiological papers. Locally, no sense of urgency or preparation for the disaster that is coming.
- Late Dinner
- Being Dan (an example of Link Apprentice Overreach)
- A Sense Of Danger (not really overreach, but “danger” is not always the same)
Plague dinner #7: rösti potatoes (because we’re watching The Restuarant/Vår tid är nu), grilled ribeye. Shiraz/Viognier. Brownies. Happy birthday to my beloved.
and so it begins....
Ventured outside for first time, risking peril in order to acquire food. Rationing of eggs, milk, tomato sauce. Bread flour unavailable in the market, not even for ready money.
It wouldn’t be pretty, but we might be able to hold out for a month.
I told the cashier, “Thank you for your service.” I believe this wrong to say to ex-military (ww2 excepted) but apt for grocery store personnel who continue to work despite the risk.
The apparent indifference of local leaders to the looming catastrophe is alarming: while we face mass deaths, they fiddle at the margins with errand running and sewing ineffective masks. We need 16000 ventilators next week, but people seem to assume that someone else will take care of it. We need a million N95 respirators right now; the leaders are asking people to check their closets.
This focus on minutiae in the face of catastrophe baffles me. “Do your job” is good advice for normal plays, but not now: today, it’s “someone tackle that guy or we will lose the game and the season.” Is the seeming indifference a catholic assumption that God will provide, or that we should give up because it is all in His hands?
We are facing a terrible reckoning.
People who should know better are spreading misinformation. Don’t do that. If you are distributing information and any detail is wrong, fix it. If you’re not sure, do the research or call someone who can.
Work: memorandum Plague dinner #6: strozzapretti amatriciana, fresh bread, pecan pie.
Happy birthday to my beloved Linda.
Yesterday, the Mayor of our little City of Malden (Official) hosted a call-in show with the chief of police and Karen Colón Hayes. Almost every question in the tedious marathon concerned the caller’s safety or convenience. Almost none concerned volunteer service or preparation for what is to come. The Mayor concluded by saying that “we’ll all get through this.” I hope he understood that this was untrue, because it is very unlikely that all of us will.
Ask not what your city can do for you: ask what you can do for your city. I wish I knew better ways to help prepare for the coming storm.
Plague dinner #5: gong bao chicken, rice. Chocolate pots de crême.
Ten (!) hot peppers, but the dish was not even especially hot. No peanuts or cashews in the pantry, so went with pecans.
Pots de crême sous vide (90min, 158°F) was a piece of cake. 4 pots held in reserve for later in the plague.
We are growing short of eggs and milk, and one day soon we will have to risk the grocery.
I confess I did look at 1-way air fares to Australia And New Zealand tonight, on the off chance that we could get a visa. Already astronomical; soon they’ll be at 1960 levels, as much as a small house. Probably better anyway to stay and fight for the last best hope, even if survival seems increasingly in doubt and victory, if still possible, will be as bitter as those peppers.
Trump announced plans to let ~2 million die. My friends and neighbors don’t believe it, and are cheerily sewing nearly-useless cloth masks because they’ve seen movies of WW1 ladies knitting socks for the soldiers. We could be preparing for the storm. We could be building ventilators and building hospitals. But I’m afraid that a lot of folks will have to die before the local city officials stop assuring us that everything is under control.
Many of the first victims will live in cities that won’t vote for Trump; GOP planning to blame Democratic Mayors for the terrible carnage. Of course, many victims will be black, asian american, or Latinx. they’ll be blamed, naturally.
Dissolution of the United States in the coming 18-36 months is now on the table.
The latest Tinderbox brings back an idea from one of my oldest papers — the Link Apprentice. When you select a note, Tinderbox compares it to other notes in the weblog and suggests some notes to which you might link.
Right now, Tinderbox uses common language to suggest link ideas. (For wonks: it’s a modified tf-idf that looks at substring prefixes and is slightly weighted to reemphasize repetition and rare or unique words.) I’ve got plans for a better link apprentice.
In a big document like this one, the link apprentice finds some interesting links. They aren’t necessarily good ideas, and some of them are idiotic or over-simplified, but some of them are interesting.
The raw data from Lombardy, a ghastly scene soon to be repeated in our neighborhood. The early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in Lombardy, Italy. Cereda et al.
Plague dinner #4: Sugo de Spezzatino, , noodles, home-made biscuits, Rosso Toscano.
Nice pot roast of chuck, tomatoes, celery, onion, juniper and sage with a little hot pepper. I would have made some pasta, but we’re running low on eggs. There’s lots of sugo left, so fresh pasta next time.
Ruhlman 312 biscuits were good! These weeks will be the rennIsance of American baking if the King Arthur Flour people can keep it together.
The president last night floated a trial balloon to left the disease go ahead and run its course, killing perhaps 10 million Americans, in order to prop up the economy.
The Imperial College Report #9 is indispensable. Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID- 19 mortality and healthcare demand
Ryan Avent: Apart, Together
There’s no need to hoard, but if each individual suspects that others may hoard then it makes sense to hoard, and so there’s hoarding. But what determines whether a community refrains from or engages in hoarding? It’s about mutual expectations, yes: I think you won’t (or will) and you think I won’t (or will) and so we don’t (or do). But what shapes and informs those expectations?
We face a real risk is the collapse of civil society. Trump and his allies make this far worse by undermining trust. Sooner or later, the government may want to tell people that they ought to do something they don’t want to do. Will anyone believe them?
Plague Dinner update #3: roast chicken, purple sweet potatoes, broccoli sautéed in olive oil, Quinta de Chocalpha (Lisboa). Pecan pie.
Lacking foresight, I failed to brine the chicken and so I went for crispiness. 450F convection oven, lots of kosher salt, stuffed with a quartered yellow onion. The sweet potatoes were overdone — convection isn’t so good for them — but good enough in their way.
Dinner update #2: lamb shoulder, Brussels sprouts, steak fries, les heretiques. Pecan pie.
Lamb was 24hr sous vide at 137F With garlic and dried rosemary, finished on grill. Excellent. very tender, flavorful. 137 was just short of medium; might try 133 next time.
Brussels sprouts: chop and render 2 slices bacon. Reserve bacon, keep fat. Saute sprout over med-high heat until slightly charred, salt, cheap “balsamic“ in quantity. Reduce to a thick glaze. Add the bacon.
The new continues dismal. I sent a memo to all our local officials, following up on a memo I sent nine days back, pointing out apparent hazards that seem not to have been publicly addressed. I’m far from convinced local officials understand the enormity of the situation, or that they have resources to do more than react to immediate crying needs. Soon, a wave of disaster will overwhelm us all.
Last night: Dry-fried Chicken (ganbian ji 干煸鸡) from https://amzn.to/33ztKdr . surprisingly good. Made with with stuff on hand, substituting asparagus for green pepper. It’s an emergency!
Estimates for Q2 GDP changes are very modest — down 12%, maybe down 24%. I don’t see how that’s possible. Everyone is going to get laid off; I don't think there's an independent restaurant in our city that will survive. Lots of people won’t be able to make rent — and a lot of the people to whom they pay rent are the family upstairs, who count on the rent check to make ends meet. Even if you can work from home, the productivity loss is enormous: I’m good at this, and getting my workflow right on a new MacBook Pro has meant installing a half dozen apps — Transmit, Slack, DropDmg, SD Notary, Tot, a big Xcode update — and attendant fiddling and registration and whatnot. A quarter that was down 24% would be unprecedented, but I can’t imagine how we could achieve it.
by Marie Brennan
A long time ago, I did a little bit of graduate work in Latin Epigraphy (with Herbert “Brick Stamps” Bloch). This is a wonderfully-imagined fantasy about Victorian epigraphy. The grand-daughter of the famous Lady Trent, Miss Audrey Carhart, rivals her famous grandmother for erudition and determination. She is called upon to translate a dozen newly-discovered clay tablets, written in ancient Draconic and describing a sort of foundational epic or creation myth. The world is interested in the dragons — discovered a few decades ago by Audrey’s illustrious ancestress — and their political status is a source of friction. Anti-draconic proto-fascists are organizing and they have the ear of many influential and wealthy people. An epigraphic fantasy of manners is a fine thing to read in time of plague.
There’s a lot of interest lately in zettelkasten. In German, this just means “note cards”; the term alludes to the a 1992 chapter “Communicating With Slip Boxes: An Empirical Account” by Niklas Luhmann in which Luhman described his note-taking practice. The latest revival has centered around Roam Research, an interestingly hypertextual Web app by Conor White-Sullivan.
When I first read the Zettelkasten paper, in the late 90s, the interesting point was the physical filing system. Luhmann wound up with 20,000 note cards, which obviously is quite a stack to shuffle. His idea was to avoid systematic or categorical filing: every note had a unique number, which was arbitrary. If it wasn't obvious where a new note should go, you’d give it the next number in sequence and file it away at the end. If it was clear that a note belonged alongside some other note, you'd just extend the numbering system: if it belonged with Note 571, then this would be 571.a. The let you easily refer to (link) notes in other notes, and an external index listed interesting entry points for later use.
The new zettelkasten revival isn’t about all that: it’s about facile linking. Three components seem to be key:
- foregrounding the list of existing links to and from the note you’re reading.
- making it very easy to add links, for which zettelkasten fans prefer the wiki convention of [[enclosing]] the name of the destination on double brackets.
- some sort of help remembering the name of the destination note.
Tinderbox is good at this, but it arguably could be better. Indeed, there's been a gargantuan thread on the Tinderbox Forum exploring various routes to faster or more facile link discovery.