Tag: cocooning

Hello, Where Did the Fun Go?



Hello, where did the fun go?

Has anyone seen the fun lately?

Whatever radar allowed me to seek and discover fun is now gone or may I say sorely lacking.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself but I’ve noticed more and more that parties, get-togethers and all around good times seem to have disappeared from the planet.

Oh some might say it’s the fault of that evil COVID monster and I’m certain that played a large part, but people seem so conditioned now to just staying at home and well, just being.

Are we all a bunch of Ghandis now? Meditating over what to watch on Netflix? You can’t have a conversation anymore without a friend asking if you’ve seen this or that movie or series on a streaming channel.

Ohm, British Baking Show…Namaste

I can’t believe how many friends have told me in the last few weeks they are very content never leaving the house.

Eerily, it seems it’s all come to pass.

Many years ago Trend Queen, Faith Popcorn who publishes the Popcorn Report focusing on future trends predicted all this.

How did she know?

She wrote that in the future, and that was over twenty-five years ago, people would adopt cocooning as a lifestyle.

Choosing to stay at home and building home media centers and larger kitchens and be more into eating at home. How did she know?

So if she predicted this so long ago is she psychic? Did she know a pandemic was on the horizon?

Was she in the Chinese lab or something?

I doubt that since she’s still alive, but she called it nevertheless.

It seems that no matter where I look, everyone is in a hurry to rush home and cocoon. I know staying in lockdown has changed the human dynamic a great deal, but have we all forgotten what it felt like to just see and interact with others?

During the pandemic most people had their own POD. Family members or friends they felt safe interacting with they saw regularly to keep from completely losing their minds, but now that everyone can go, the get up seems to have gone.

I can’t speak of course for young people who started the decline into oblivion pre-COVID when they chose social media interactions over human ones.

If you want to interact with a young person today you better know how to text.

Even I’ve noticed the preferred way to communicate now is by texting. So many of my friends now text to ask a question, where once it would have been a reason to initiate pleasant phone conversation.

It seems lock down has led to lock jaw.

I understand that sometimes it’s time efficient to text a question to someone, but you can’t gage the tone of a friend’s voice from a text. And no, emojis don’t work the same.

Most people my age can instantly discern from the first hello of a friend whether or not something is going on, bad or good.

Many times hearing a friend’s voice can lead one to probe a bit further and suddenly there is a conversation that was desperately needed to help out with a problem or issue. How can friends be there for one another if they don’t have a clue about the situation?

Perhaps someone should create emojis that hone in on any issue.

Like hands sticking a knife in a heart to signify, “hey I’m on the verge of a collapse here.”

Or perhaps someone tearing one’s hair out to connote a divorce is imminent.

I definitely think there should be one with a crying refrigerator designating difficulty staying on one’s diet.

And of course the hangman’s noose to say, “help, I want to kill my husband.”

A fat belly with a happy face to connote your having a new grandchild or flowers on a grave that says, “call me, I visited a loved one at the cemetery today and I’m a mess.”

Or a woman swallowing an ocean that screams loud and clear, “I’m too bloated to live.”

These are all things we once said to a friend over the phone and talking about it helped the pain or multiplied the joy or whatever someone needed at that moment. Now suddenly we have all retreated into ourselves and a phone conversation seems like too much work.

Sadly, many times we don’t even realize how desperately we need that conversation until we actually hear a friend’s voice.

Emojis can’t talk. They can’t sympathize, empathize or boost someone, or help a friend sort through what is bringing them down so you can lift them up.

Birds stay in their nests, but they sing to communicate and the song is beautiful.

I fully understand that in some strange way the lockdown showed us we can do well on our own, with help of course from Amazon. Yet I’m not certain that silence is all that golden and may be a bit overrated.

Humans need one another or God wouldn’t have given us voices. Oh sure at times the sound of a voice is the last thing you want to hear, but it’s truly what keeps the lines of communication alive and creates a closeness a text could never achieve.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I say when we leave this party called life we will hear silence for a very long time.

I’m not so sure I care to rush the situation.

Sure it’s fun to watch a good movie and down some popcorn with your feet up in front of your own giant flat screen, but it’s also fun to go out to dinner, lunch, or shop with friends. Parties can be fun and sharing a concert or a play together is great even if it’s not so good. At least you have someone to bitch about it with on the way home.

The lock down is over but are we still prisoners of its consequences? Do we need to remember what life was like when we actually talked and socialized with one another? Netflix is no substitute for the smile or voice of a friend so call someone you haven’t talked to in a while and reestablish the lines of communication in the way they were designed. Otherwise Alexander Graham Bell wasted his life and that would be a shame.

Rustic Onion Galette

6 medium onions sliced

¼ cup of sliced leeks

1½ cups of heavy cream

1 small package (4 oz.) cream cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

½ tea thyme

Pastry large enough for a tart shell puff or regular

½ stick of butter

Olive oil

Add olive oil and butter to frying pan and heat

Add onions, leeks and seasonings and sauté on medium heat until onions are just turning brown and beginning to caramelize. Add cream cheese and cream and continue cooking until cream reduces a little and cream cheese melts through well. Taste and add seasoning if necessary. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in microwave and add 1 tablespoon of flour. Mix together and add to cream mixture until thickened.

When done place on pastry and fold sides up leaving a small opening at the top. There is no wrong way to fold a galette just as long as all the sides are folded around the filling. It’s a perfect recipe to be creative. Place it in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until pastry is cooked.

You may also use this recipe for tiny tarts for hors d’oeuvres or add mushrooms to onion sauté and extra half and half or milk and make a delicious soup. Also great with some goat cheese or Gruyere sprinkled on top when warm.

Are We There Yet, Mommy? Are We There Yet, Daddy?

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Are We There Yet, Mommy?

Are We There Yet, Daddy?

As every parent knows, the most annoying question bar none is, “are we there yet?”

How many of us have had to sit in the car and listen to that question ad nauseum from their children?

Okay my turn…Are we there yet, is COVID gone?

I am sooo over this whole hanging-in-the-house thing. I’ve been patient, stayed put watching Netflix, ate healthy and took walks.

Now I’ve morphed into shoveling in chocolate chip cookies and popcorn and spend more time flipping channels than watching programs.

Although I know the vaccine will be here in October, what will that mean?

The older generation won’t be running out to get stuck until they watch to see if anyone drops dead.

We’re too old to be guinea pigs and we’d rather watch from the sidelines than jump into the game. Besides jumping isn’t an option when you need a walker or cane and are still doing physical therapy for your new knee or hip.

So how will we ever get back to normal?

Aha! That’s the rub because even when we get out of lockdown, captivity or self-imposed quarantine the world we once knew is no longer there.

I feel like Burgess Meredith in the Twilight Zone episode when after a nuclear war he finally had all the time in the world to read his books unencumbered and he broke his glasses.

The pre-COVID world was a different place and especially senior citizens will have to accept that the world they knew is gone.

So what will replace the old world?

Well, COVID is not the lynchpin that created the changes, it only intensified what was already transforming.

Ever since 9/11 we’ve had to face the fact that the freedom of movement we’ve always enjoyed since the advent of air travel has been severely restricted.

Terrorism impeded our ability to run amuck along with our own aging bodies.

Sure we figured out a way to get that new hip, but we haven’t figured out a way to see London Bridge without a lunatic running up and stabbing people. Or walking through a German Christmas market without crazies attacking, attending a concert or sightseeing in Madrid or Nice or any number of insane events we’ve witnessed.

I haven’t mentioned Israel because terrorism is a way of life for them and something one accepts when they head there for a visit.

Yet impediments aside we’ve grabbed our passports, packed our carry on and bitten the bullet. We’ve become the “oh-well-what-will-be-will-be” generation and decided that our priority was to live, travel and see the world despite the obvious risks.

So what’s changed? Plenty.

We once believed that after those trips to London, Rome, Vienna or Prague, visits to Singapore, China or Viet Nam we’d return home to our safe perch in America.

Sure, crime existed, but we felt safe and secure in front of our televisions watching baseball and munching on chips and guacamole while running outside to check the ribs on the grill.

Guess that’s over. America is not the same country now.

After COVID most assume we’ll just go back to business as usual, unscathed and unafraid.

Sorry, we need a reality check here. Cities are burning, law and order is in flux and familiar sights and sounds in our communities are gone.

Neighbors who once disagreed over which football team would prevail now refuse to talk to one another over politics.

Families have separated, friendships been destroyed, cities are in chaos, favorite businesses closed, entire sections of communities burned and boarded up.

It’s like walking out of your house after a nuclear holocaust and into a city in ruins.

Am I exaggerating? Actually I’m not sure, but I hope I am. I’m also from Detroit where it took 53 years to bring back a city torn to shreds and resembling London after the blitz, so there’s that.

So many people I know have said they are through traveling and will be staying closer to home.

Yes, cocooning is the new norm. People will entertain in their houses, man caves and she sheds will become palatial and so well appointed the Four Seasons will pale by comparison.

Media rooms will be enhanced and back yards will feature the same elements as the most fabulous five star resorts.

Lush landscaping, pools and recreational games will fill what once was a grass-filled area.

In case anyone doubts that things have changed just do an attitude check on your own friends.

Everybody is just a little bit crankier than they were four months ago. Oh sure everyone is trying to be so brave and double chins up (that would be as a result of the COVID 15 pound gain) but we all know we’re totally over this and ready to break out.

Actually, that’s the irony. After the initial run outside to our cars, faster than a racer at the Indy 500 I’m sure, and that visit or two to the mall, lunch with friends and dinner out on Saturday night, one news story about a rise in crime and we’ll all be hanging in the man cave watching football and sucking down beers like it’s Superbowl Sunday every weekend.

I’ve promised myself I’ll travel more and have my destinations all picked out, but will my will be diminished by a new terrorist attack or perhaps a few new cases of the virus popping up? Or maybe by China unleashing some new plague from some bat they’ve been harboring in a lab somewhere?

The world has changed dramatically and although we all want to believe that once we can hit the ground running we will, our habits have changed and we may not.

We now order Amazon and watch Netflix on that new 80-inch smart TV, we love that new patio furniture and those plans for an outdoor kitchen like our best friends just installed.

Whether we’ve realized it or not we’re now conditioned to staying close to home where we feel safe and secure against an onslaught of insanity that permeates the outside world.

When the virus is gone, that will be gone, but it won’t take with it the other tragic changes we’ve witnessed in our communities and that is what will ultimately define our new lifestyles.

Are we there yet? Perhaps soon, but where we’ll be when we get there, now that remains to be seen.

   Champagne Grape and Almond Chicken

4 chicken breasts or boneless thighs

flour for dusting

½ cup of champagne

½ cup seedless red grapes

½ cup seedless green grapes

½ cup sliced almonds

½ cup of chopped celery or bok choy

1 ½ cups of heavy cream

½ teaspoon of tarragon

salt and pepper

Season chicken with salt and pepper and dust with flour

Sauté chicken in a mix of butter and oil until done

Add celery or bok choy or both and sauté for a few minutes, but keep the crunch in the vegetables

Remove chicken and set aside

Add champagne and deglaze pan then add cream, grapes, tarragon and salt and pepper to taste.

Lower heat and simmer until cream coats back of a spoon. High heat will break the cream and ruin the dish. Always thicken cream sauces on a low heat and never boil.

Add back chicken and reheat then serve immediately with almonds on the top.

 

 

 

 

 

Is COVID a Scary Glimpse Into and Preparation For The Future?

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Is COVID a Scary Glimpse Into and Preparation For The Future?

Cocooning: staying inside one’s home insulated from perceived danger.

Faith Popcorn, the trends and futurist guru coined the term cocooning in 1981 predicting a trend toward staying at home in lieu of interacting with an increasingly uncertain world. I always thought her theories were fascinating and right on, this one has to be not merely predictive, but downright psychic.

So what does this mean to us as individuals if we prefer to stay inside and interact less with what transpires outside our domain? Will it create a world of hermits living in fur-lined, customized caves? How will it affect what we manufacture, purchase, create and invent? Especially the way we communicate with one another.

Or can we let go of others and forego human interaction for that great new series on Netflix?

According to Popcorn, the places we live will become more minimal with movable multi-use furniture. We won’t even need television screens any longer thanks to Microsoft’s Hololens and other new ways of delivering images directly to our brain. Sales of tiny houses in the US are up 67% already and designers are building new and more interactive homes every day.

The last phase Popcorn mentions is the regenerative phase of cocooning or living in a pod that is wired to anticipate our needs. It’s transportable and can be taken with us wherever we go. Mercedes has already envisioned a live/work space that takes us from location to location guided by a robot.

She predicts 50% of work will be freelance and your robotic kitchen will cater to your nutritional and dietary needs. Your bathroom fixtures and mirror will scan your health and transmit it to your medi-bot to make the required changes in your diet or meds. And what if I still want that Sander’s Hot Fudge? Will I have to battle my robot for a sundae?  Is Big Brother my doctor?

Alexa will be there to listen when you’ve had a rough day and provide a robotic shoulder to cry on. Houses will float on water or be underground as rising sea levels affect millions whose homes will be underwater in high tide. Does that mean ocean front property will be selling super cheap?

I could continue but I suggest you read Popcorn’s report at faithpopcorn.com as it is a fascinating, albeit sometimes scary peak into the not-to-distant future.

Yes, I believe these new technologies and inventions exist, but recent events seem to point otherwise. I may not be an expert on trends, but human nature I know something about. After my last blog I received so many responses from people saying how much they treasure their early memories and having others to share them.

So if human beings are so happy to share and interact with others, why are we going out of our way to create a world where we do neither? I’ve always been under the impression there are two kinds of people; those who love wide-open spaces and the second type that enjoys urban living. My generation, once married seemed to gravitate toward homes with large lots and spacious yards for playing, entertaining and creating a comfortable distance with one’s neighbors. Yet, not too far as there seemed to be a genuine need to have other children for playing and parents with whom to socialize.

It seems incredibly foreign to me after being locked in captivity the last three months that this would become a permanent way of life. I certainly don’t see anyone enjoying the solitude and whoever can is running outside faster than Coyote chasing Roadrunner toward that cliff.

Was Barbra wrong when she sang, “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world?”

Or is this a world that will only exist in the memories of those still alive to remember the good old days, when people socialized and interacted with one another?

Recalling a time when we stood in line at crowded movie theaters and at restaurants to dine. When we watched a television show together as a family on that great new, big screen Dad brought home for himself for Mother’s Day?

When we look back it does seem that life has truly changed greatly in the last 75 years since World War II, but the changes to come that are really revolutionary are not that far away now. Tech is moving so quickly one day we’ll blink and that new “modern” kitchen will be as outdated as a Model T Ford.

So I have to ask myself, technology is evolving at warp speed but is mankind? Is there something in all those new gadgets that will alter a human’s need for love, caring and affection? Can we be satisfied with Alexa’s shoulder to lean on when a dream dies, a romance falls apart or we feel hopeless and vulnerable? Is this the way man will evolve, a creature controlled by artificial intelligence sitting in a tiny pod (guess they cure claustrophobia in the future) and having a movie programmed through his brain?

Yipes! I imagine humans will adapt to this new form of existence although I’m glad I won’t have to. I prefer sharing memories with friends, hugging my kids and grandchildren, walking in a beautiful garden and enjoying a meal I’ve prepared with someone special. The future seems awfully lonely and we’ve recently glimpsed into it Zooming, Skyping and Amazoning through today.

I for one will be glad to get out into that scary, unpredictable world once more, because as frightening as it may seem, it beats cocooning, seeking solace from a robot or hiding away forever.

The following is a recipe from a dear friend no longer here. It’s still one of the yummiest. ENJOY!

Malka B’s Strudel

Strudel dough

2 cups flour

½ pound of cream cheese

½ pound butter

½ cup of honey mixed with 2 tablespoons of water

Cream butter and cream cheese and add flour. Knead well

Chill several hours or overnight

Divide into six portions, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate about half and hour before rolling out to 14 or 16 inches.

 

Fillings

1 18 oz jar of apricot preserves

1 small package of sweetened coconut

1 small package of walnuts

1 small package of raisins

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs

 

You can also use fresh apple slices, raisins walnuts and cinnamon and sugar as a filling and for a new kick add some caramel to the mix.

 

Preheat oven to 350

 

Roll out one portion of dough and brush on a thin layer of honey and water mixture

Spread on a layer of preserves

Sprinkle on a light layer of graham cracker crumbs

Add coconut raisins and walnuts and begin rolling from the bottom up. Seal top together with honey water mixture.

 

Score the top into eight pieces and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet.

 

Bake about 45 minutes until lightly browned.

Cut into pieces and sprinkle with powdered sugar when cooled before serving.