food and drink yesterday (and covid-safe socializing)

[mellowtigger]

I don't "cook", not the way people usually mean that word. I make my own single-dish meals, but that's as fancy as it gets.  For most of my life, I never bought meat for use at home, because I never trusted myself to store and cook meat safely. That calculation has changed slightly with the air fryer, though. I can buy packages of 2 chicken breasts at the grocery store, then use it that day and the next. Easy and safe.

 
Yesterday, I ate what turned out to be an excellent combination. I've lived here for 7 years, but this week was the first time I finally visited the nearby "Good Deal Oriental Foods". Besides a wide range of fruits and vegetables that I've never seen at other stores, they also had a giant 4-pound bag of these Assi sweet potato noodles. The package said "gluten free" right there in big letters, so I had to buy some! It'll take me a month to eat all of it, but it makes a very nice change of pace from my usual bed of brown rice.

1. Start the chicken breast in the air fryer (use the preset "steak" icon), then set a pot of water to boil.
2. When it's boiling, add a handful of noodles for 3 minutes. It and the chicken finish at the same time.
3. Empty the hot water, drop the noodles into a giant bowl. Use a pizza cutter to roll across the noodles in crosshatch in that bowl to cut them up easily.
4. Add pre-cooked collard greens (I used half of a can) and a heaping tablespoon of Patak's Vindaloo Curry spice paste. Mix it all together well.
5. Drop the chicken breast on top.

With rice, it's easier to eat meals like this with a giant spoon. Those noodles, though, require a fork. It was surprisingly yummy. I will eat this mixture again, I'm sure.

Later in the afternoon, I joined the local Boys & Brews club at La Doña Cerveceria, my 3rd favorite brewery in Minneapolis from pre-pandemic days.  I went early, wore my Flo Mask elastomeric (with mask area shaved clean for good fit) when I went indoors to order, and I kept my Woody Knows nasal filter when I removed the mask to drink outdoors.  If you look closely at the large version of this picture, you can see the plastic band across the bottom of my nose where I can easily pull the filters back out again.

It was only 8C/46F outside, but the other dozen guys wimped out after 45 minutes outside then went indoors.  I'm still not doing indoor stuff, so I sat outside and read the local gay magazine on my own.  That magazine had this feature story which included a male couple who met a few years ago at one of these Boys & Brews events.  How's that for a fun coincidence?

Anyway, I took the photo of myself alone outside, just as proof that I do sometimes attend social events, even during pandemic.  As I learned dating for 1.5 years a guy with AIDS back in the 1990s (and I never seroconverted), I know that it is possible to safely enter high risk situations that you choose to be part of.  Staying negative is equal parts luck and effort, but you just can't skimp on the effort part.

Stay safe out there.  And, just for grins, wash your hands and face when you get back home.