The switch to Nancyland2.blogspot.com was due to changes from the platform, but for Nancyland, this transition will mark the palpable boundary between two "eras" - life before and after the pandemic. I'm enjoying running a food club and visiting events and restaurants with the members. People have generally stopped wearing masks in my city except for specific reasons (for example, if you have been sick, visiting a doctor's office, getting a vaccine in a pharmacy, or generally being more cautious as an individual). The previous pandemic pantry posts were written in a time of great uncertainty with no vaccine on the horizon and very little clarity about how the virus operated.
Announcements of an effective vaccine, its approval for use, and imminent availability came in December 2020. Since then we've had multiple boosters, death rates and severe hospitalization cases came down, the concern about the health care system collapsing under the burden of the effects has been lifted, and being in public is very similar to what it looked like before the pandemic. Personal space is a bit wider (already a bigger radius in Canada than some other countries before. Would be interesting to see if personal space rankings swapped around at all). For example, you can see people lining up at coffee shops with a bit more space, almost at 1.5m apart if there's room. But we have returned to comfortable hugging and shaking hands. My eating includes a good chunk of going out to restaurants. But the pandemic has ignited the home restaurant delivery service industry. Which is very appealing to a single introvert who loves eating in pajamas and slippers while keeping the cat company (rather than abandoning her to go out). Patio spaces and street "park" areas that replaced car parking spaces with seating for businesses increased here. And everyone learned how to wash their hands better. My posts will focus now on my very best eating experiences in the Vancouver, BC area. I do cook and have a new appliance that inspires me to try cooking things that I normally didn't before.
Take good care of yourselves, like this special cardboard xiao long bao carrier, from Shanghai Wonderful in Richmond, takes care of these precious pork dumplings filled with soup. The little compartments prevented any ruptures and tiny flooding catastrophes. We'll "clink" dumplings soon.
