The Best Kind of Food to Cook During a Pandemic
I chose risotto, but any recipe that requires your full, constant attention is a good distraction from anxiety.
Somewhere around the seventh ladle, I resigned myself to the idea that this was my life now. The chicken stock had been simmering for what seemed like an hour, and my weary right arm had grown accustomed to its new raison d’être: stirring my first-ever batch of risotto until it reached the vanishing horizon of al dente. Or until the apocalypse arrived. At that point, it still seemed unclear which might occur first. But something else happened somewhere between the sauvignon blanc evaporating and the grains cooking: For the first time in days, I’d stopped obsessing over the impending doom I’d been imagining, as news of the spread. There was no low thrum of anxiety beating alongside my heart, no
