The Waffle House never closes and yet here we are
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- March 19, 2020
- 1175
The one thing in this country you can depend on to always be true 100 percent of the time is no longer true: Waffle House is closed, at least in Ohio. Now that all bars and restaurants have been shuttered for the duration, Waffle House being closed is a big indicator of the seriousness of the viral containment effort in America. Waffle House never closes, yet here we are.
This also is a time for interesting social observation, and I have to admit I don’t understand what people are doing as they prepare for possible quarantine or why. But we can get a pretty good handle on what people eat when they’re grabbing things in a panic: chiefly, eggs.
Last weekend, just a couple of hours after Gov. Mike DeWine instructed restaurants statewide to close for in-house dining, there wasn’t an egg to be found in local grocery stores with the exception of three-dozen organic eggs from chickens raised on Mozart and heirloom grains at a spa for $10.
The next day I found a store well-stocked with eggs but had to postpone buying any for about a half-hour while I ran another errand. When I returned not more than 40 minutes later, there were four-dozen left. People were heading to the checkout with large carts filled with nothing but eggs. And I noted those faces and vowed to strike them from the Christmas card list in the future.
Hoarding is most unhelpful in such times, and shame on you. It makes it easier to understand why FDR, almost a year before U.S. entry into WWII, rationed everything from gas to lard to prevent hoarders from snatching it all up.
From the looks of store shelves, you also grabbed an awful lot of bags of chips, a remarkable amount of breakfast cereal, cleared out the supply of boxed mac and cheese, bought jarred pasta sauce, bread, bad coffee, canned soup, butter, and cream cheese. The empty cream cheese shelf was just past the untouched supply of yogurt, just across the aisle from the plentiful juices, around the corner from the bountiful green produce.
The only vanished thing in the produce department was potatoes. Surprisingly there was lots of beer and wine. Rest assured liquor stores should remain well supplied as restaurants and bars that stocked up for now-canceled St. Patrick’s Day parties will be able to return unopened bottles for a refund with the state’s one-time blessing.
As I write this, the number of COVID-19 cases in the area is still in the single digits. By the time this falls under your eye, it will surely be much higher, given state officials are estimating the number of infected people in our state is somewhere around 100,000.
One huge, positive change I’ve seen is the number of men popping into public restrooms just to wash their hands. My previous observation is the majority of men enter bathrooms and leave them again without the slightest pause at the sink. Let’s hope this new habit continues.
I’m very happy Ohio has leaped to the forefront in trying to slow the spread of this virus. It seems we are leading the way as other states follow our example. Each day brings further restrictions, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the food service workers who are continuing to provide takeout meals for us. I’m also seeing celebrity chefs offering online simple cooking demonstrations as an assist for those who aren’t used to cooking.
For my foodie friends who are confined to quarters, this is a boon, offering rare time to actually cook interesting things and experiment.
And if you are locked in, bingeing pretzels and omelets and macaroni and Cheerios and cream cheese, bon appetite.