As I am writing this, I am sat on my couch, have just finished a glass of pinot noir and have spent the day researching and writing a long article. It’s my 8th day of quarantine, and I must admit that earlier I ventured to the shop to refill my stash of beer and ingredients for homemade pizza. Other than that, I’ve been staying at home, washing my hands regularly, and trying to keep myself sane, since this is going to take a while.
What the hell happened…?
I know I have been awfully quiet lately. January and February were very busy at work, so busy that I often found myself working longer hours and not having any mental capacity to do anything that required my brain. So, aside from my usual wine tastings and a little travelling, I spent most of my free time watching MasterChef Australia. And then, this whole lockdown thing happened.
Last Saturday, I spent hours trying to write an article for this blog, and I just couldn’t. My mind was elsewhere, dazed and confused about this situation, and about my role in it (aside from being a good citizen and complying to the local government’s measures). As I took a break from writing and scrolled through Instagram, I saw all my favourite restaurants, bars and cafés close their doors due to corona. It broke my heart and made me very sad. I ended up unable to sleep until 6am, as my mind tried to come up with solutions to this crisis.
About #foodonourtables
So, last Monday, with a little help from some colleagues and my employer, I started Food on our Tables. I didn’t have a plan, and I used every spare second of my time to put it all together. I launched a series of downloadable social-media-friendly posts that encourage people to support their local hospitality businesses. The next day, a fellow food blogger contacted me, and I suggested we worked together. So we launched a database of food businesses that are still open during these times, either for delivery or pick-up.
As the list has been growing and more volunteers have joined us to help build it up, I started looking at what businesses around the world are doing. This is what I spent the day writing, and you can find a compendium of over 30 ideas in the blog post that I just published.
With Food on our Tables, the only plan I have is to take it further, one step at a time, get people to work together, build a community of support and provide useful resources to what is my favourite industry.
Get involved!
If this initiative sounds interesting to you, you would like to get involved, are doing something similar, please get in touch with me. I strongly believe that we’re far stronger together and I would be happy to help as much as I can.
Hopefully, this will all be over soon and I can resume the food science articles, interviews with inspiring chefs and winemakers, and geek out about food, like before!
Stay safe and stay home,
With love,
Ioana
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