It has been a long time since I posted anything either on my blog or social media. And it is not that I have been lazy or lacking creativity. (I have had a few articles and recipes ready for publishing). The truth is I didn’t want to post them as if nothing happened. I felt I had to refer at first to the current situation. But I simply didn’t know how.
Was It Really Life Before “Stay at Home”?
As probably many of you, I am still in a sort of shellshock. From one hand it feels like a lot of time passed since “the normal days”. But from the other – less than two months ago we were still wondering if we should carry on with our plans and go skiing in Italy. At that time there were only a few cases of coronavirus there… In the end, all four of us decided against it, and we went to the Polish seaside instead. This relaxing holiday probably gave us the strength we would have needed so soon.
Just three days after my daughters went back to London after the holiday, the situation worsened in Italy. And in Poland, a national “stay at home” restriction was announced. Meanwhile, in the UK, not much was done to stop the virus from spreading. Additionally, supermarkets’ shelves in London were stripped of food. In this situation, we preferred our daughters to come back and stay safe with us. Quite understandably, they found it challenging to make the decision to leave their friends and lives behind.
Decisions, Decisions
Meanwhile, things started to move swiftly. Just a few days later, the Polish government cancelled all the scheduled flights and closed all the borders for foreigners. Fortunately, there were still two ways left for Poles to get back to Poland: either try to get on one of the flights chartered by the government or fly to Germany and drive back.
Looking back, the 15th of March was one of the craziest and most stressful days of my life. It started around 11 am when my daughters made the final decision to come back home. The frantic search for chartered flights showed there were no tickets available for the following two weeks. Luckily, we were still fast enough to buy the last tickets for the last flight to Berlin that day.
Mission (Im)Possible Accomplished
I left home around 5 pm and by myself (my husband is in a higher risk group than I am) drove on a deserted motorway to Berlin. There, I had a very surrealistic experience. When I could already see the airport, my daughters called me to confirm they had landed. Except that massive airport was empty! For a few minutes, I thought I transferred to a different reality: how could have they arrived if there was no one there?! Thankfully Google Maps on my phone (how could we have lived in the past without the internet?!) took me at the end to the right place – the Schonefeld airport and not the unfinished Brandenburg one that, somehow, the GPS in my car directed me to.
When the three of us finally approached the border, we couldn’t have noticed the quite long queue. But none of us thought we would spend there almost 5 hours waiting for our temperature testing! (FYI some people who arrived at the border 2-3 days later had to wait for 30 hours in a 50 km (!) long queue). Finally, having spent in the car 15 hours, I brought my daughters home. And as per new rules, the next day our 2-week strict stay at home only quarantine begun.
Life Under Quarantine
I am finishing writing this article post-quarantine so I can say that probably we didn’t have the coronavirus (unless we all went through it without the symptoms). Obviously from the 5th day of our quarantine, all three of us started to be a bit paranoid: each cough or sneeze caused a mild (or not) panic. But the most important thing is that we are feeling fine now.
While we were under quarantine, police visited us every day to check whether we did stay at home. (We, of course, did. A penalty for breaking this rule could have amounted to almost 8.000 dollars per person!).
We received a lot of support from family and friends who brought us shopping and checked on us. But nothing changed the fact that unlike during the lockdown when you should stay at home, but you could go shopping, or even for a short walk, we mustn’t have left the house for 14 days.
We spent the time under quarantine working, which was very difficult at the beginning under the stressful circumstances. We also spent hours talking to one another as well as to friends and family members about the situation and how we couldn’t believe all of it was happening in reality. But, obviously, we also cooked.
Stay At Home And Cook
Although we did get supplies of fresh products every few days, we mainly used ingredients from our pantry. And because my daughters don’t eat meat, we often used legumes. They are a great and tasty source of proteins. But their other advantage is that you can keep them (dry or canned) for a long time.
One of our favourite dishes was Dhal with Spinach and Green Peas. We did have fresh spinach, but this dhal would be still excellent even without it and with the fresh tomatoes replaced by canned ones.
Aromatic Iranian One Pot is always a hit with my daughters. Although technically a soup, its thick consistency ensured that a bowl of it kept us full and extremely happy for a long time.
I still had squashes so Spicy Pumpkin with Spinach and Cashews had to appear on our quarantine menu. Again, it includes spinach, but if you don’t have it, you can easily skip it.
I have also used the time under quarantine to try out some new recipes, and soon you will see the results of my experiments on my blog. But for now, stay at home and stay safe. And remember, it will all end one day :).
Nice read!
Glad to know your daughters are back home with you, safe and sound. The current covid19 crisis has changed all our realities and way of living. Not sure if we will go back to normal normal, or have a new normal. But nonetheless, stay safe and keep cooking!! Sending you warm wishes from Malaysia 🙂
Thank you 🙂
Thank you, Bin! I think we will have a new normal, fingers crossed it will be a good one. Take care and all the best from Poland 🙂
Thanks for the like on my blondies! I hope you are keeping well and keeping your sanity.
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Good one! It’s yet to get normal in India! Hope it gets only better 🙂
Welcome 🙂 I love Blondies too, and yours look delicious, I will try to make them next weekend :). And yes, I am trying to do my best, and find positives in these strange circumstances, like, e.g. our daughters are with us now 🙂
Pretty food! 🙂
Thanks a lot! It was very good as well 😉
Good read and good food, and happy you and your family are safe and well ?
Thank you so much DFV Queen. Health and safety are definitely the most important things, especially in this crazy time. Hope you are well too 🙂
Nice one
Thank you 🙂
Most welcome ??
🙂
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Wow! What an eventful time of isolation for you and your family! Glad you are all making it through and your recipes look great! I also don’t eat meat and I love lentils. I’m gonna try your one pot Iranian dish!
Thanks you, I know we can’t go wrong with health and safety it’s the best way to go. You’re especially now! Hope you’re doing ok and keeping safe have a lovely weekend
Thank you, Billie, for your kind words. Yes, the beginning of our isolation was a bit like from an action movie ;). Luckily, it is much calmer and normal now. BTW the Iranian ONe Pot is my daughters’ favourite 🙂
Absolutely! Thank you and the same to you 🙂
I love your pictures, they make me want to eat them.
Thank you so much Giusi for such a nice compliment 🙂
Thanks for sharing your quarantine experience. This is, indeed, a very difficult time for all of us.
The pleasure is all mine, I felt I should explain why I didn’t post anything for a long time.
Unfortunately, you are right: it is a very difficult time for us but we have to believe it will get better soon. Stay safe and stay healthy, Jasbir 🙂
It has been such a strange time. Here in North Dakota, USA, we were never under lockdown, or stay at home orders. But much was closed. And, like you, we spent most of the second half of March in fear– The good thing is, we were able to spend a lot of time together as a family–that may be a downside as well 😉 Also, I am a rather accomplished home cook–so staying home and cooking was not terrible. I’m looking forward to a taste of normal soon!
Same to you have a great weekend
Nice ?
Enjoyed the read. Thanks for the recipes.
I know what you experienced felt like, on no…do we have it. The news provided information overload. The internet wasn’t any better. The start of it all had most people around the world freaked out. Glad that you and your family are all good. ?
We’ve all had to come up with new or redesigned recipes to keep cooking interesting!
Nice blog ?
Wow, lockdown sounds really quite serious where you are. Your food looks delicious though – I especially love the sound of pumpkin, spinach and cashews together as those are three of my favourite foods. Sending warm wishes from Oman. Stay safe 🙂
It was so good of you to stay home even though you weren’t obliged to do it! I agree it is painful sometimes to be all together, but I think we should try to find positives of this strange time. I am, e.g. so grateful our daughters are with us now because I thought this chapter od our family life was over. So I make the most out of it! And – as I have read from your blog – you started a special lockdown project, so good things are coming out of it 🙂
Thank you 🙂
Thank you so much for your feedback. I hope you will like the dishes 🙂
I agree, at the beginning all of it sounded much worse than it is now. Or maybe we have just got used to it? One way or the other, I am happy I brought my daughters back home as this has given us some unexpected time together 🙂 Thank you for your comment Violet, and hope you are doing fine too 🙂
True, Matt! This might actually be another advantage of a lockdown!
Thank you, Vishal.
Thanks for sharing both your experiences getting your daughters back home. What an experience . I hope that you’re glad your government took those emphatic preventative steps. I hope it helped curbed the spread and wish all counties take a cue.
Thanks for sharing the recipes too. Hope we’ll be reading more from you. ✌?
I wanted to like it but I can’t find a like bottom
I know what you mean about feeling the need to refer to the current situation. I vacillate between bringing it into my posts and not mentioning it at all. I for one am tired of reading about the grim nature of it all. Enjoyed this post, thank you! ?
This look delicious
Lovely post and a nice commentary on the feelings brought on by quarantine!
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that I had to Change my Site Name and Address. So now, It’s arcpjsfoodblog.wordpress.com
Welcome 🙂
Yes, it was good all these measures were taken early enough to stop the spread of the virus. However, summer made everybody relaxed much more, and as a result, the situation in Poland is much worse now than it was when I was writing my post. And unfortunately, nobody knows how the next few months will look like…
Thanks a lot for your comment and stay safe
Sorry for that, Chiko, I am in the process of transferring my blog to AMP and not everything works properly yet. But you have just let me know you like it, and I appreciate it a lot 🙂
Thank you so much, Lisa, for your kind comment. The pandemic has adversely affected so many aspects of our lives. However – as it will be with us still for some time – I believe we should find positives of the situation 😉
Thank you so much, Kendall, for your kind words 🙂
Thank you, Josephine. Poppy seeds add a nice texture to this cake; they also made it more “Christmassy” {I initially prepared it for Xmas}. Being Polish, I was brought up with different poppyseed cakes. We, e.g. have a cheesecake with an almost equal layer of poppy seed, and I love it! But I know not everyone is such a fan of it; that’s why in my recipe, there is only a bit of it 😉