Is the Coronavirus affecting you

[Jackielou]

Sso far Northwestern Ontario (reaching to the Manitoba border and way far north to Hudson Bay) has had 95 cases with 89 resolved (meaning fully recovered) and one death with a man in his 50's with underlying conditions. We have had a definite flattening of the curve. Many of the cases were associated with the mine which had remained open and the men lived in very close living quarters. Quite a few were related to people living on a northern reserve, where people tend to live in cramped homes, so harder to maintain social distancing. On the whole, people in our city are taking it seriously, although I do notice more car traffic now that the weather is nicer. Foot traffic has also increased.

It certainly has changed the way I do shopping! I do my groceries almost exclusively through pick up orders now. It's common and expected for there to be a line before you can enter a grocery or hardware store. And it is a requirement to take a cart in both (even if you're only picking up a few items) to maintain social distancing. There are arrows indicating the direction of the aisles and you're not allowed to pass anyone, no matter how pokey they may be. And at the checkouts there are red dots to indicate where you should be standing.

Although there's not outright price gouging, there are not as many bargains as you could find before. You can expect limits on some items, especially meat now. Some things are still impossible to find, such as Lysol wipes and Purell. Restaurants are offering free delivery to stay afloat as well as an increasing number of small businesses.

Golf courses are now open except for the municipal courses which are due to open next Friday. You are not allowed to share a cart with anyone and social distancing must be respected. The clubhouse, concession stand and washrooms are closed. Provincial parks and camp grounds also opened but again no amenities such as washrooms or laundromats.

Schools are still closed and in all probability won't reopen until next September. Our university and college will be offering online courses only next September. Librairies remain closed as well as all community centres and swimming pools, gyms, etc.

So it's still pretty strict lockdown

Creative

Sounds pretty much the same here in Saskatchewan. I did however find Lysol wipes and Lysol cleaner (which can be made into a spray. Still no hand sanitizer though.

Our biggest outbreaks have been in the Far North section of the province. Workers coming back to the reserve and the town of La Loche, brought the virus from oil camps around Fort McMurry in Alberta. We had pretty much crushed the curve until this happened.

[littlemiss63]

I just read in our paper that our governor has given the ok for reopening of all retail and restaurants to full capacity as long as the tables are spaced 6 ft apart and masks are worn. I sure hope they know what they are doing. It's not going to make any difference to me as I will continue to shop-on-line for my groceries and want be going into a retail store. I will feel more comfortable when this port that was removed is completely healed. I am able to put a waterproof bandage over it and take my showers, which are a god-send. Just taking one step at a time.

People must really love their fast food if they are willing to wait in lines that I've seen at McDonald's, Taco Bell and especially at Chick-fa-la. Yesterday the sun came out in the afternoon and everyone must have headed to Chick-fa-la. The line was wrapped around the building and up into Lowe's parking lot. Cars were backed up at least a 1/2 mile.

Now that I have found me a beef supply I am less tense about the next phase. I just went to sleep on not having my pantry as well stocked as it should have been. If you have your basic pantry and can cook you can keep yourself afloat for a while, whether it's a shortage of food or money.

[clemencia2us]

I just read in our paper that our governor has given the ok for reopening of all retail and restaurants to full capacity as long as the tables are spaced 6 ft apart and masks are worn. I sure hope they know what they are doing. It's not going to make any difference to me as I will continue to shop-on-line for my groceries and want be going into a retail store. I will feel more comfortable when this port that was removed is completely healed. I am able to put a waterproof bandage over it and take my showers, which are a god-send. Just taking one step at a time.

People must really love their fast food if they are willing to wait in lines that I've seen at McDonald's, Taco Bell and especially at Chick-fa-la. Yesterday the sun came out in the afternoon and everyone must have headed to Chick-fa-la. The line was wrapped around the building and up into Lowe's parking lot. Cars were backed up at least a 1/2 mile.

Now that I have found me a beef supply I am less tense about the next phase. I just went to sleep on not having my pantry as well stocked as it should have been. If you have your basic pantry and can cook you can keep yourself afloat for a while, whether it's a shortage of food or money.

I too am shocked at the long lines at restaurants!

Well guess that is good for the them. We eat a popular meat called barbacoa - it is made out of the cheeks or jowls of a cow. It is a staple for breakfast on the weekends around here. We have two places here that sell it. This morning there were at least 30 cars at one and 15 at the other. It is crazy.

And a new place opened up on Friday. That was brave. But he sold out both days!

I guess people just do not cook at home and will wait in lines for however long. Not me.

I started doing it once a week, but then thought = eh - looks like they have plenty of business. I've been saving money by eating what I have.

[clemencia2us]

When Robert Borrego Jr. was a young boy growing up on the West Side in the years just before World War II, weekends brought a man pushing a cart along Leona Street. That cart held a galvanized steel tub holding a pile of barbacoa and another steel container holding corn tortillas.

“He would go by the neighborhoods yelling, ‘bar-BA-COH-ahhh!’ with a great big high-pitched sound. It would wake you up,” Borrego said. “All the ladies in the neighborhood would come up to him and get half a pound or a pound.”

The barbacoa man measured out the fatty shredded beef on a brass scale, and he included tortillas in an order.

Today, San Antonians buy their barbacoa at restaurants or tortilla factories and barbacoa is served in upscale restaurants and venues far beyond the Mexican and Mexican-American neighborhoods.

“Now we get orders from all over; it’s served at the Convention Center,” said Borrego, owner of Adelita Tamales & Tortilla Factory. “It has gone from carretoncitos, little wagons, to country clubs.”

The tender, simply seasoned beef is a tradition we in San Antonio generally take for granted, but it’s a true regional treasure.

Fill a corn or flour tortilla with a few spoonfuls of barbacoa, sprinkle a little salt, then add some salsa, diced white onion, minced cilantro and maybe a squeeze of fresh lime, and it’s a bite of San Antonio heaven.

How much do we treasure it? Consider that Adelita Tortillas, the Borrego family business, goes through about 700 pounds of beef cheeks for barbacoa on Saturdays and another 800 pounds on Sundays. And during the Christmas holidays, that number skyrockets to about 2,500 pounds each day. Multiply those numbers by the hundreds of tortilla factories and restaurants throughout the city, and you’re talking about an incredible amount of cattle.

The most traditional version of South Texas barbacoa has its roots in the ancient, indigenous method of pit cooking. Indeed, a cooking pit was found near what is now the Olmos Dam and dates back some 4,500 years, according to author and chef Adán Medrano in his cookbook “Truly Texas Mexican.”

And, of course, there is the Mexican tradition of wrapping whole animals in maguey leaves and cooking them underground.

The more modern version of the barbacoa we devour on weekends has its roots in the ranches of South Texas when workers cooked a whole cow head over wood coals in underground pits.

“Barbacoa has made a big change from the days when it was a head in the ground on the ranch,” said Joe Doria, market manager at Bolner’s Meat Market, 2900 S. Flores St.

Today, Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville is the only restaurant left in Texas that can legally cook whole heads in the ground with wood coals. Health departments generally prohibit the technique, but Vera’s is grandfathered in.

Nowadays, most tortilla factories and restaurants steam beef cheeks to make barbacoa. Some places still will use heads, but federal regulations require the brains and spinal cords to be removed to reduce the risk of spreading mad cow disease.

At Adelita, the beef cheeks are placed on 2-by-3-foot trays and placed in large steamers, seasoned with only salt, pepper and garlic. There, they sit for some six or so hours, losing some 30 percent to nearly half its weight as the fat renders out.

At El Milagrito, 521 E. Woodlawn Ave., a restaurant lauded for the barbacoa that it serves every day, a mixture of beef cheeks and meat from the head is wrapped in a maguey leaf and cheesecloth, topped with a cow tongue and steamed. The tongue is saved and served separate for lengua dishes.

Once the meat is cooked, it needs to be shredded and cleaned of the remaining fat. That’s a delicate balance. If the meat is too clean, it loses some of the flavor that comes from the fat. But too much fat isn’t good, either.

“Barbacoa can get really greasy. But you have to give people the flavor. Otherwise it’s dry,” said Amador Montoya, the son of Amador Montoya, owner of El Milagrito.

On the restaurant’s menu, the meat that’s well cleaned is called “all beef” or “pura carne.” The fattier meat is called regular. Roll it up in a tortilla and it will drip from the end.

“It’s grease,” said the younger Montoya, “but it’s good grease.”

[alliesmama4]

When Robert Borrego Jr. was a young boy growing up on the West Side in the years just before World War II, weekends brought a man pushing a cart along Leona Street. That cart held a galvanized steel tub holding a pile of barbacoa and another steel container holding corn tortillas.

“He would go by the neighborhoods yelling, ‘bar-BA-COH-ahhh!’ with a great big high-pitched sound. It would wake you up,” Borrego said. “All the ladies in the neighborhood would come up to him and get half a pound or a pound.”

The barbacoa man measured out the fatty shredded beef on a brass scale, and he included tortillas in an order.

Today, San Antonians buy their barbacoa at restaurants or tortilla factories and barbacoa is served in upscale restaurants and venues far beyond the Mexican and Mexican-American neighborhoods.

“Now we get orders from all over; it’s served at the Convention Center,” said Borrego, owner of Adelita Tamales & Tortilla Factory. “It has gone from carretoncitos, little wagons, to country clubs.”

The tender, simply seasoned beef is a tradition we in San Antonio generally take for granted, but it’s a true regional treasure.

Fill a corn or flour tortilla with a few spoonfuls of barbacoa, sprinkle a little salt, then add some salsa, diced white onion, minced cilantro and maybe a squeeze of fresh lime, and it’s a bite of San Antonio heaven.

How much do we treasure it? Consider that Adelita Tortillas, the Borrego family business, goes through about 700 pounds of beef cheeks for barbacoa on Saturdays and another 800 pounds on Sundays. And during the Christmas holidays, that number skyrockets to about 2,500 pounds each day. Multiply those numbers by the hundreds of tortilla factories and restaurants throughout the city, and you’re talking about an incredible amount of cattle.

The most traditional version of South Texas barbacoa has its roots in the ancient, indigenous method of pit cooking. Indeed, a cooking pit was found near what is now the Olmos Dam and dates back some 4,500 years, according to author and chef Adán Medrano in his cookbook “Truly Texas Mexican.”

And, of course, there is the Mexican tradition of wrapping whole animals in maguey leaves and cooking them underground.

The more modern version of the barbacoa we devour on weekends has its roots in the ranches of South Texas when workers cooked a whole cow head over wood coals in underground pits.

“Barbacoa has made a big change from the days when it was a head in the ground on the ranch,” said Joe Doria, market manager at Bolner’s Meat Market, 2900 S. Flores St.

Today, Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville is the only restaurant left in Texas that can legally cook whole heads in the ground with wood coals. Health departments generally prohibit the technique, but Vera’s is grandfathered in.

Nowadays, most tortilla factories and restaurants steam beef cheeks to make barbacoa. Some places still will use heads, but federal regulations require the brains and spinal cords to be removed to reduce the risk of spreading mad cow disease.

At Adelita, the beef cheeks are placed on 2-by-3-foot trays and placed in large steamers, seasoned with only salt, pepper and garlic. There, they sit for some six or so hours, losing some 30 percent to nearly half its weight as the fat renders out.

At El Milagrito, 521 E. Woodlawn Ave., a restaurant lauded for the barbacoa that it serves every day, a mixture of beef cheeks and meat from the head is wrapped in a maguey leaf and cheesecloth, topped with a cow tongue and steamed. The tongue is saved and served separate for lengua dishes.

Once the meat is cooked, it needs to be shredded and cleaned of the remaining fat. That’s a delicate balance. If the meat is too clean, it loses some of the flavor that comes from the fat. But too much fat isn’t good, either.

“Barbacoa can get really greasy. But you have to give people the flavor. Otherwise it’s dry,” said Amador Montoya, the son of Amador Montoya, owner of El Milagrito.

On the restaurant’s menu, the meat that’s well cleaned is called “all beef” or “pura carne.” The fattier meat is called regular. Roll it up in a tortilla and it will drip from the end.

“It’s grease,” said the younger Montoya, “but it’s good grease.”

Clem that was fascinating to read. I love Mexican food but have only had some basic foods in our local restaurants. I hope some day to get to Texas and will look in to trying your special dish. Can you get it outside of San Antonio? My friends lives in Dallas.

[MackerelCat]

I guess this is one way Covid is affecting us: my husband announced today that my cooking during quarantine has been so good that he sees no reason to eat at restaurants ever again.

Now there's a compliment to cry over! I did gently remind him that I can't cook like that AND hold down a full-time job.

Locally, I think the curve was flattened for all of one day. Then our idiot governor overruled the mayors of the state's four largest cities who were doing such a good job, and we have had more than a dozen new cases every day for the last two weeks. No new deaths, thank heavens, but people are being too careless now.