Day 20: Salt

April 11, 2020 Covid Samin Nosrat

My working hypothesis is that the crisis turns us all into more of the person that we already are. Like salt—which chef Samin Nosrat once described as “the spice that makes food taste more like itself”—this… thing tends to emphasize all of our character traits.

If you were anxious before, you’re now panicking. Or, if you’re like me and don’t worry about things out of your control in order to obsessively think about things within your control, well, then you’re stuck in your own little galaxy. Which is what this increasingly feels like: A bit of a prison of the mind.

There’s a bit of a debate raging on the internet about whether this state-imposed pause should make us all more productive or whether we should all use it as an opportunity to chill. “I finally feel like my feelings and the world are in sync”, a friend had said, happy to be relieved of society’s pressure to do something.

On the flip side, there’s suddenly no longer an excuse to not do all the things you usually put off because of other obligations. “If I don’t walk out of this with at least one podcast script”, I had told Rocío weeks ago, “then I don’t know when I will write one.”

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