Of course, that was in January, before the COVID-19 pandemic, before grocery shortages, back when I thought I could drop into any specialty grocery store in the city to pick up whatever I needed (fully recognize this was a privilege and luxury of living in a diverse urban center with lots of immigrant communities; hopefully those shops will survive this pandemic!). Now, in addition to challenges I just didn't feel like doing, there were challenges that needed to be postponed. I postponed some because of ingredient shortages (like missing yeast), but others because the dishes I really wanted to try required going to specialty stores that I just can't visit right now, like the Week 19 (Sri Lankan) and 22 (Nepalese) challenges.
I'm sure it won't be as good, and probably won't be a pyramid, but how can I not try to make my favorite Sri Lankan dish?
As for skipped (and not postponed), so far there's only two (since I was able to figure out a third). Once I realized I was going to be skipping more than one challenge though, I decided to give myself two more chances to complete each week. Since I had missed the 2018 and 2019 challenges, why not see what the challenges were for the same week during those years? Going forward, the plan for any skipped 2020 challenges would be to first check those years to see if there was a good substitute, and if not, then the week would be skipped without any guilt.
Those two skipped challenges are still skipped, and here's why:
Kawaii (Week 11)
Cute cupcakes at Whole Foods
Week 11 was mid-March, and while the dates of the challenge line up perfectly with when I began self-quarantining for months, that wasn't why this one was skipped. I love looking at photos of meals that would qualify for the kawaii challenge, but I didn't actually want to make any of them myself. Considering the time crunch we're usually in for dinner and all the other stuff we need to do all the time, taking the time to make food look cute just for the sake of the challenge wasn't appealing. I have the utmost respect for people who do make such cute stuff since I love to see it, but it's just not for me, at least not right now. (I had also assumed B would be too young to really appreciate food coming out of the kitchen looking like one of his favorite characters or animals, but then he saw some food on Instagram that looked like dogs, and well, I was wrong.)
The two Week 11 challenges that I missed were Arctic (which sounded interesting, but just making some salmon didn't really feel in the spirit of the challenge), and inspired by video games (which I did in 2016). Week 11, skipped.
Puree (Week 20)
Purees can be really useful in elevating dishes, but I really didn't want to make one. I didn't want to break out the blender or the food processor because they take up a lot of space. Our counters are full because the groceries are in various stages of quarantine, and they just leave so little room for other prep work. (I was also reminded from a later baking experiment that the loud mini food processor terrifies B because of the noise, so another reason not to use these loud appliances!) Also, B spent many months eating purees for every meal, and I don't think any of us really wanted puree for dinner. If it was just a puree for an accompanying sauce, it felt like a lot of effort for something so minor. I just wasn't feeling this one at all.
Similar to Week 11, the two Week 20 challenges from the past year also didn't really appeal to me: lattice (no desire to make a pie right now) or multi-course meal (have I mentioned how slow I am in the kitchen and how little prep space there is?), so Week 20 was skipped.
Hopefully the rest of the year will bring challenges I won't want to skip and less postponements!
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