Lockdown Day 26: Cabbage and Despair

16,981 cases.

Seems like the number is coming down, which should make one optimistic. But today I felt more despair than ever. I found out that there was yet another new case in my community, the fourth in five days, so our expected date of release from lockdown was pushed out two more weeks, until May 9.

Not only that, this most recent case was on the other side of my building, in the other entryway.

How is it possible that we’ve been locked down in our homes for almost four weeks now, and cases are still being detected? It does make me start to believe what others have been saying: that the PCR tests themselves are a source of infection. It’s really the only time we go out. We’re with other people. We’re taking down our masks. And just as what I observed while I was in hotel quarantine, the medical staff practice good hygiene. They supposedly sanitize their gloved hands between each person, but they do it very quickly, not allowing the sanitizer to work completely.

Anyway, this was also the day where, to keep on top of the vegetable situation, I ended up having cabbage for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Breakfast was this congee that was a tablespoon of uncooked white rice, with maybe a third of a head of Napa cabbage, and a quarter of a daikon radish. I topped this with the salted olive vegetable.

I love it when you stir in the black clump, it completely disperses throughout the congee inflecting every bite with brininess.

For lunch, I made a big turnaround of one of my unsuccessful kitchen experiments, the caramelized cabbage, onion, and mushroom mixture with aquafaba. Maybe because I cooked too much at once, the cabbage lost any sort of texture, while it all still had a very strong… cabbage-y flavor. Well, today I directly turned it into a soup. First, I cooked a potato in the Xiaomi instant pot with a tiny bit of water and soy sauce. Then I added in most of the cabbage mixture, a whole carton of milk (from a government delivery), and some garlic parmesan powder. Then I blended it all with my immersion blender. I then stirred in the remaining unblended cabbage mixture, and topped it with sliced almonds toasted with olive oil and that garlic parmesan powder again. This provided some crunch and extra saltiness.

The milk and potato really smoothed out the flavor of the cabbage! This was a very filling lunch, perfect for a drizzly day.

After lunch, I had a navel orange and another matcha almond cookie.

And more of the tea, that I discovered yesterday.

These teas have interesting labels…

…the foil bit has pictures of the “tea master” (what is tea master?) for each tea.

This Da Hong 大红 tea is the one I’m drinking now.

Quite conveniently, our PCR test of the day happened right after lunch, and before my next meeting. The entryway leader was very kind and let me go in front of her (we arrived at the same time), because she said “你们需要工作“ recognizing that many of us need to work during this time, and we have all of these interruptions in the day. It felt very parental to make this small gesture for my working schedule!

This time at the PCR table, I was particularly attentive about the practices of the medical staff. I did see the staff put sanitizer on his hands after the last person, but he just slapped it on and then proceeded to handle my swab without allowing for the residence time of the sanitizer to work. And probably because he had so much sanitizer on, and rubber gloves, the swab was very slippery and he had to touch it very far down the stick, where the breaking point is. I’m very afraid he touched far enough down the stick which might have touched the inside of my mouth - especially because this time he really went after the back of my throat, not the sides of my cheeks or tonsils. I will speak up next time if I think there is unsafe practice.

After the test, I changed out of my “outside” clothes, brushed my teeth, and took a shower for peace of mind. Then I had carrot pineapple whole wheat millet muffin.

Today again, between 6-6:30pm we had to submit our antigen test results. Today there was a new requirement that we not only write our name and date, but also 晚 for evening, and the one we do after midnight today, we write the following day’s date and 早 for morning.

For dinner, I decided I needed some kind of protein, because I was planning on working out, and I hadn’t really had any protein all day. So i took out a block of bolognese sauce made with beef chuck from the freezer to defrost, but instead of pasta I cut up some cabbage to make “noodles.” Besides that, I cut up the remaining head of iceberg lettuce, which looked okay actually despite being in the fridge for a while, and the cherry tomatoes, which definitely had to be used (they were bursting, and I had to throw out some that were moldy).

I did the prep work, then did the workout, then cooked everything up. Here’s my very keto diet-friendly dinner!

Somehow frying up the iceberg lettuce always gives me an initial aroma hit reminding me of McDonald’s or barbecue. Maybe it’s the smell of iceberg lettuce of a Big Mac heating up against a hot hamburger patty?

I ended up eating only a bit of the lettuce, because the cabbage “noodles” topped with cherry tomatoes and bolognese sauce and parmesan cheese was quite filling. This was actually very good! I coated the cabbage with soy sauce while working out, and tried to squeeze out liquid before stir-frying. I then stir-fried the cabbage in butter, which made it tasty. And there was still a good crunch to the cabbage. But I think it was probably very good mainly because the bolognese sauce was really good!