I feel the same way.
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Happy Weekend. Some of the flowers were gifted to us & I added sunflowers from the garden. DD1 gifted us the sea salt from the San Juan Islands. Itās seasoned, and very yum!
So life is still good, although the skies are a lurid yellow from the wildfires.
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Lovely flowers. I got flowers from DH on Friday. A thank you for doing some banking for his latest automotive purchase. A lovely little addition to my weekend.
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Ooh, very pretty @aussieshepsx2 - your H gets a triple A plus for selection alone, not to mention the thoughtfulness!
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There is a silver lining to CV-19.
Some of us have posted about how much we like curbside pickup.
I have two deliveries on the calendar. For the first (leaving later today) which is short (two days) with owner aboard I set up a new account at my local grocery with the owner/customerās credit card information. I loaded the cart with what we need for the trip, and the owner added what he wanted for the week he and his wife will spend cruising after we move the boat. Aside from the convenience, since the customer is paying directly he saves the 2.9% credit card fee I charge on expenses when I buy things and get reimbursed. Everyone wins.
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Iām helping a chef friend develop some cookie recipes as they pivot from large scale catering to gift baskets after being closed for 5 months. Iād mentioned how hard-to-find and expensive nitrile gloves had become and he gave me a whole case! 10 boxes!! Best gratuity ever!!!
Never could have guessed how exciting basic kitchen supplies would be 
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Share? My chocolate chip recipes are still pretty much off the back of the Nestle chip packet.
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Weāve got a 52 Studebaker Commander here in Ashlandia with an āI Like Ike ā bumper sticker. The guy drives it around occasionally.
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Nothing wrong with Tollhouse. Though I like to use part browned butter and add extra salt and vanilla for oomph. And premium chocolate, of course!
This project is adapting recipes to go through a depositor machine that extrudes dough through a die then cuts it with a wire. It can portion 20 lb of dough into hundreds of cookies in little time, with little labor. Weāre avoiding anything with large or firm chunks that could get stuck or snag on the wire, so no chocolate chips. Most of the āinspirationā recipes are from Dorieās Cookies, weāre tweaking them & adjusting so they spread enough to fill the packaging and for things like using frozen citrus zest instead of fresh. Itās sort of fun, sort of tedious, but weāve made progress.
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That really is fascinating. Iād love to see a picture of the machine. Bulk for me (cookies or meatballs) is small enough that I use an ice cream scoop or a melon baller. I really like learning about commercial scale production. What a wonderful project in which to be part. Thinking about the depositor machine reminded me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEXfqheV9Gg
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Thatās really cool, have you seen this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
The cookie machine is similar to this, but does a row of 6 and weāre having a hard time getting uniform results. They bought it used and the computer interface is primitive and not at all intuitive to a couple of chefs. Thereās definitely a learning curve but even if we have to toss the too-bigs and too-smalls back in, it should still be faster. Scooping hundreds of cookies by hand is a literal pain.
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From an engineering perspective three things come to mind: your mix is inconsistent, there is a design problem with the machine, or there is a calibration problem. Calibration is most likely. Important information is tracking whether one column is more likely to be big or small.
Holler if you want help. We can do a video call so I can see and tell you what I think.
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So, the next time I accidentally pick up a call from someone trying to sell me āa special rate on my car insuranceā Iām going to tell them I drive a ā52 Studebaker Commander. That oughta end the call. 
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This is used in Spain and Italy. We call it āBlood Plasmaā.
It has saved alot of lives.
However it is a remedy and not a vaccione for immunity.
Have debated where to put this, it would fit under the bad news topic too;
being a half glass full type person, guess it will go here. Ha ha think I just came up with Dx for self - a depressed optimist lol.
Okay, it was a beautiful fall day yesterday, and I had plans to meet up with a friend for lunch. We ate outside, it was cool and breezy, but the resto had their heaters and fire pits on. We ordered the same thing, except for the wine I had. 2 large Dungeness crab cakes with red pepper aioli and a cup of seafood chowder. Both were outstanding, the crab cakes were mainly crab, with maybe egg and just enough filler to keep them together. So all good with food, ambience and weather, also catching up and feeling normal.
Iām glad lunch ended when it did, otherwise Iād probably have wept. Just a lot of bad news, health and otherwise about former co-workers, although nothing related to Covid. In fact thatās the way the week started, albeit nothing involving immediate relatives.
So I guess we take the bitter with the sweet and keep on keepin on. Food is a powerful and pleasurable comforter, as well as a gentle reminder that life does go on.
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Yes, strange but true. Here in NYC, hope springs eternal, I guess.
I would say not good news at all. Waste of capital, and dining out is high risk in a pandemic. People should learn to cook and stay home.
NY is especially unique in the fact that take out and delivery is probably more common than dining in. I can see with costs (rents) dropping dramatically and vacancy rates rising that if you can accommodate enough people with out door dining, combined with a strong take out / delivery business this could be an opportunity. I didnāt read every restaurant but I notice in the few I did read, they were quoting their outdoor seating capacity plus their ālimitedā indoor.
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Or at least as common. I think one can still make a living that way, albeit not as easily (and Iām not saying it was ever exactly easy) as in the past. The real losers are the midtown and financial district restaurants that relied on selling lunch to office workers. 'Cause theyāre mostly gone.
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