Life on lockdown in NYC (Hope: unemployment, buying, to live)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In my case, since way before this, I always cooked for myself. Not a fan of restaurants (I used to hate going to the new trendy crowded restaurants anyway) so even during this shutdown my life has not changed even in the food habits. One thing that does help me, however, is having lived in Europe for many years when I was a very young man I absolutely would not ever ever consider cooking for myself...until over the years I started observing cooks all over the world, got inspired and eventually became attracted to cooking. In fact, now I have hundreds of recipes I know (medieval too) and I bake bread often. During this pandemic, it has been a bit harder to find flour depending on where you go and YEAST (but I still tend to buy fresh yeast from the baker). For people who do not know how/don´t like to cook, delivery is still happening. My roommate still gets delivery on an almost daily basis. He started cooking and then said F it and went back to his old ways...especially because I am in the kitchen a lot more than he is and he can´t be bothered with all the cleaning cooking involves. I've even made omelette from chickpea flour and potatotes instead of eggs! Now I am in the process of learning to make homemade red wine, which is something I had wanted to learn since a while back.
I tend to make everything from scratch and enjoy meat pies, vegetarian and vegan dishes too, porridges, soups, you name it! All of this washed down with either wine or ale depending on the mood, and I'm good.
Going back to what I mentioned in my first comment on this thread -- I still think life has become a major major inconvenience here in NYC. Let's face it: living in NYC was never "comfortable" to begin with when it came to things like food shopping, etc...but now? Even less so. Luckily I do have a laundry where I live, inside the building...so I have not noticed a change in that either but going grocery shopping has gone from bad to a dreadful experience, with the chaos of single aisle lining up and shortages (NYC supermarkets were notoriously bad anyway in many places, but now it is worse).
Congratulations to you for sticking it out with panache! Cooking is a great way to use this time, but my wife is doing that, I"m the lazy one, actually doing other stuff, though.
I've been wondering how long the wait time when you call for groceries to be delivered?
Congratulations to you for sticking it out with panache! Cooking is a great way to use this time, but my wife is doing that, I"m the lazy one, actually doing other stuff, though.
I've been wondering how long the wait time when you call for groceries to be delivered?
Do you use an app?
Thanks! I don't get groceries delivered, though. I have a fairly good supermarket nearby and go there early in the morning with my mask now (something I hate and take it off the minute I walk out). I have heard though that deliveries for groceries are going to take a long while for many people. I like to feel the products I buy, so even if there were no waiting times, nothing beats me going and taking a close look at everything I need to inspect for my cooking.
People who have $ will definitely move out of the city permanently. Those who have cheap apartments aren’t going anywhere.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Thanks! I don't get groceries delivered, though. I have a fairly good supermarket nearby and go there early in the morning with my mask now (something I hate and take it off the minute I walk out). I have heard though that deliveries for groceries are going to take a long while for many people. I like to feel the products I buy, so even if there were no waiting times, nothing beats me going and taking a close look at everything I need to inspect for my cooking.
Yep, I moved to a small suburb of Montreal, and if we had kept living in the city, I suppose deliveries would have been more complicated, the demand higher. As it were, we've had satisfactory wait times except for Costco, the supermarket chain we chose (IGA) has been pretty good apart form some items missing, the fruit and veggies were good.
That is what I wonder about, with higher demand for deliveries in the higher density areas of NYC, this must be pretty complicated. There is also the question of filling and delivering big orders to all those apartment buildings. Sheesh!
There's an increase in police activity by me. See & hear police sirens go by just as much as the ambulances. And they're not all police cars, they're police trucks with sirens blaring. Throw in the fire trucks as well. Lots of ...sirens.
I was surprised to see a speed trap on the Grand Central Parkway last week and a car pulled over. The cops are starting to enforce traffic laws again. I hadn’t seen that in weeks.
We have a 24-hr supermarket in the neighborhood, so grocery shopping isn't so bad (if you don't mind going in the middle of the night or the break of dawn). One of the reasons I love living in NYC is that you generally don't need a car, but I have to admit that having one would be really nice right now. I want to take one of my pets to the vet, which is like a 10 minute drive but I prefer to avoid taxis so i'm trying to figure what to do.
I'd also like to have a car because I'd go to Manhattan if (God forbid) someone was sick and needed to go to the emergency room. The ones in the Bronx are just way to crowded from what I can tell. I get the impression that with so many gone to their country homes, Manhattan emergency rooms are way less overwhelmed. I think that the city should try to distribute patients throughout the system, but i don't think that's the way it works.
If I could, I'd make a thread with a poll asking whether people think it's easier to live in lockdown in NYC with roommates (including family) or alone. I live with family but my spouse's domestic shortcomings, which I thought I'd accepted years ago, are really getting on my nerves. Although I think living alone would be tough too because most people can only stand so much solitude.
We have a 24-hr supermarket in the neighborhood, so grocery shopping isn't so bad (if you don't mind going in the middle of the night or the break of dawn). One of the reasons I love living in NYC is that you generally don't need a car, but I have to admit that having one would be really nice right now. I want to take one of my pets to the vet, which is like a 10 minute drive but I prefer to avoid taxis so i'm trying to figure what to do.
I'd also like to have a car because I'd go to Manhattan if (God forbid) someone was sick and needed to go to the emergency room. The ones in the Bronx are just way to crowded from what I can tell. I get the impression that with so many gone to their country homes, Manhattan emergency rooms are way less overwhelmed. I think that the city should try to distribute patients throughout the system, but i don't think that's the way it works.
If I could, I'd make a thread with a poll asking whether people think it's easier to live in lockdown in NYC with roommates (including family) or alone. I live with family but my spouse's domestic shortcomings, which I thought I'd accepted years ago, are really getting on my nerves. Although I think living alone would be tough too because most people can only stand so much solitude.
Have you tried having a conversation with your spouse about this outside of a heated moment? I think it helps to talk it over and having in mind some solutions like chores that he can probably handle well enough that would take more off your plate and a system for keeping that going. Hopefully your spouse can be motivated by an appeal to his better nature since I’m guessing hostility, no matter how deserved it would be, probably won’t work in the long run.
As for what’s easier, I’d think it’d strongly depend on the roommate and how good of a roommate the person answering is. A really good roommate (or spouse) paired with a decently considerate person would be a massive plus over solitude, I’d think, but then there are real ****bags out there that would be awful to live with.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 04-18-2020 at 12:40 PM..
In my case, since way before this, I always cooked for myself. Not a fan of restaurants (I used to hate going to the new trendy crowded restaurants anyway) so even during this shutdown my life has not changed even in the food habits. One thing that does help me, however, is having lived in Europe for many years when I was a very young man I absolutely would not ever ever consider cooking for myself...until over the years I started observing cooks all over the world, got inspired and eventually became attracted to cooking. In fact, now I have hundreds of recipes I know (medieval too) and I bake bread often. During this pandemic, it has been a bit harder to find flour depending on where you go and YEAST (but I still tend to buy fresh yeast from the baker). For people who do not know how/don´t like to cook, delivery is still happening. My roommate still gets delivery on an almost daily basis. He started cooking and then said F it and went back to his old ways...especially because I am in the kitchen a lot more than he is and he can´t be bothered with all the cleaning cooking involves. I've even made omelette from chickpea flour and potatotes instead of eggs! Now I am in the process of learning to make homemade red wine, which is something I had wanted to learn since a while back.
I tend to make everything from scratch and enjoy meat pies, vegetarian and vegan dishes too, porridges, soups, you name it! All of this washed down with either wine or ale depending on the mood, and I'm good.
Going back to what I mentioned in my first comment on this thread -- I still think life has become a major major inconvenience here in NYC. Let's face it: living in NYC was never "comfortable" to begin with when it came to things like food shopping, etc...but now? Even less so. Luckily I do have a laundry where I live, inside the building...so I have not noticed a change in that either but going grocery shopping has gone from bad to a dreadful experience, with the chaos of single aisle lining up and shortages (NYC supermarkets were notoriously bad anyway in many places, but now it is worse).
Sounds great! Cooking more really has been one of the positive highlights for me. We ran out of yeast early on and haven’t really bothered to look for more. Instead we’ve been turning to things that don’t require yeast like making dumpling skins and noodles. I’m curious about the meatpies you’re making. Are these like British style meatpies? Do they store pretty well or do you basically have to eat them quickly.
We’re making really large batches of stuff and staggering our large quantities of leftovers so there’s always some variety. We lucked out in that just a couple of months before the pandemic we bought a bunch of stackable tupperware that’s easy to clean of various sizes. For example, I made a giant batch of Japanese style curry that’s over a half dozen meals for two and could be either served with rice, reduced and baked into bread rolls or used as flavoring and thickener for soup noodles. Having all that tupperware meant being able to split it into the freezer for longer storage and fridge for short-term storage and staggering that out in meals over weeks. We’ve been doing that with multiple things we make so there’s always variety and it saves a lot of time as making enough curry for a half dozen meals isn’t all that much more work and time than making enough for half dozen meals.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 04-18-2020 at 12:52 PM..
I started a more plant-based lifestyle and I feel great...I wish I did this years ago. It's just very expensive to eat this way and all the supermarkets by me have been sold out of the vegan cheeses etc..but this pandemic has made me take my diet a lot more seriously.
This got me wondering about which regulars in this forum would make for the best roommate during this.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
