I was sure there’d already be a thread on this, but if there’s one I couldn’t find it. If the mods/gods on high can find one and attach this contribution to that thread, please do so.
@GretchenS has succinctly and evocatively described her prepandemic eating:
I offer mine below, more verbosely, but I am what I am. What were your experiences?
Saturday, 2/22/20 (NY):
[MoMA in the afternoon – crowded, as always.]
Dinner with a friend (and distant relative) at my apartment.
[Later: Knives Out in a crowded movie theatre in Times Square.]
Even later burgers and brews at a semi-crowded nearby place.
Sunday, 7/23/20 (NY):
[Kubrick 2001 exhibit at MoMI – crowded.]
Dinner with friends in Queens – I forget where.
Monday, 2/24/20 (NY):
Had a reservation at Intersect by Lexus but had to cancel for several reasons.
(Celebrated chef from Goa, but I figured there was plenty of time to eat there before that particular pop-up closed.)
Instead, had takeout from Saar on 51st.
[Later: Concert at Lincoln Center (packed).]
Tuesday, 2/25/20 (NY):
[I did a long day of what passes for work for me, and my wife did her gig at the planetarium at the Museum of Natural History.]
[My records show a couple of canceled reservations from that time – Crave Fishbar, Txikito – but I can’t remember if we were trying to vaguely be careful, or just had too packed a schedule. I’m usually a careful planner, and cancellations are unusual for me.]
Wednesday, 2/26/20 (NY):
[Morning: Wife lectures Flatiron Institute on what’s what and what’s not.]
Late lunch at Chelsea market (packed).
[Later: Cabaret in a small, densely packed basement room.]
{After this, a gap in my records. But, were there a prime time to catch Covid we’d have caught it then. You’d see a masked person here and there in NY, but only now and then, and my wife and I went everywhere those days and did everything.}
Friday, 03/06/20 (Cambridge):
Dinner at Viale (packed). This was our last supper.
[Later: Play at Central Square Theater – thinner audience than usual, some masked, and people washing hands for two birthday song-lengths in the restrooms. After the play we walked around a bit. Happy Lamb Hot Pot nearby was basically empty. Little did any of us know then that the virus had most likely reached our shores from Italy, not directly from China.]
03/17/20 (Cambridge):
Lunch taken out from Andy’s.
Stop at Hi-Rise Bread Company for the last of their excellent soda bread, and a chat with a depressed Rene Becker (the owner).
This was to be my last food foray in a while. Restaurants closed that day.
(Although, I should add, I was forced to go to New York that tense, scary pre-vax September, 2020, for work reasons. I traveled first class on Amtrak – because, dirt cheap then, and more widely separated seats. I was flung a box of snacks by the attendant. Does that count as food?)
(I also hate bed bugs!) That was the last time I shared a share plates type of meal. I wasn’t shaking other people’s hands by then- I went through a brief phase of 
but white girl Shaka is sort of appropriation so I started doing an elbow bump instead. One Chowhound, a restaurant owner, was still hugging and shaking hands. He wasn’t buying into the social distancing public health advice before lockdown.
