Thinking Allowed: Vinegar

Quarantine days meld into each other like butter. We dress kids, we look out the window longingly, we feed kids, we play with kids, we teach kids, we set kids in front of screens, we make kids do jumping jacks, we bathe kids, we try to get kids to stop arguing, we feed kids, and repeat. So, pretty much like our lives all the time except we are locked in our room and are currently a national threat and treated like that. We had a police escort leading our bus to the accommodation and the accommodation is run by the hotel staff in combination with the Australian Police and Army. But that's ok because the past few months have taught us how to wait patiently and impatiently. And the whole concept of the Australian quarantine system is quite interesting and so it is interesting to get to see what it is really like.

One of the more important parts of our daily lives is food - the procurement of it, the preparation of it, the consumption of it and the cleaning up of it. Food is obviously also an important part of quarantine. The happiness of the viral captives is likely largely dependent on the happiness of their stomachs. Also, the drop off of food boxes is the only contact we have with the outside world each day, an event the kids eagerly await. I like to imagine the fierce competitive tactics that catering companies utilized to secure the quarantine contracts. According to what they charge people for quarantine the cost of our families catering is about $200/day - holy smokes! But it is no easy feat to feed that many people a day. At first we were very impressed. The boxes that come are cute little shoe boxes and the meals look decent. But the meals are very hit and miss in taste. The breakfasts are very successful with our family - juice, milk, cereal, yogurt, and a piece of fruit. The children, who don't usually get juice, are on an endless sugar high as we try to keep up with the amount of juice sent our way. The lunches are a gamble - usually a side salad, a sandwich, and a chocolate bar. The side salads tasted great the first day or two but are all doused in so much vinegar (to preserve them longer?) that though they are salads that are varied in content and we would normally devour them they all taste the same - vinegar. And pumpkin. all the dishes seem to have pumpkin (salads, lasagnas, pastas, sandwiches...) making me feel like this has been a successful year for pumpkin in Australia. The children were not eating the dinners so we eventually cancelled them to avoid food waste. I wonder what the non vegetarian meals are like. Our children's food boxes are marked as children's meals but are identical to ours so I bet that the non vegetarian children receive more child appealing meals. But honestly, the caterers are doing an admiral job with a difficult mission. Though definitely not worth $200 a day. We have enough time to wonder about what we would do if we were the caterers. Sophia's suggestions was 'maybe if they made better food there would be less food wasted.' I say at least they give us chocolate and apples.