Covid diary, end of the first week

We are in an eerie place at the moment.

Australians have been watching the crisis unfold in front of our eyes – first in China, then in Europe and now in the US. It feels close to us because of the frightening numbers escalating every day in the news, at first 100 felt like a benchmark, then 1000, but now we are almost numbed by the numbers and their inevitable increase.

Let me tell you something from the frontline. There is nothing like something is real, until you see it with your own eyes.

It is only real when you stand, for the very first time, face-to-face with a patient infected with Covid-19. When you see them coughing, when you see them wiping their mouths, when you realise that their respiratory droplets are not just near you, but on you.

When you realise that you are shielded from the virus behind just a piece of plastic, or a corner of a gown, that is when it is real.

When you need to tell them that you have to put them on a ventilator to help them breathe, when they ring their families crying and saying goodbye to them for potentially the last time, that is when it is real.

When you walk out of the room wondering if you had put your gear on right, when you think maybe I am going to be one of the infected healthcare workers in the news, that is when it is real.

For the vast majority of the public, the coronavirus is still something that is happening to somebody else. The people going to the beaches and having house parties make me so angry. When I went into that room to be with a Covid-infected patient for the first time, for the second time, and then for the number of times that I cannot even count, I am not just “doing my job” as people would expect me to. I have a sense of professional responsibility to these people, this is what I am trained to do. But I am appalled by the behaviour of those people who put themselves at risk, who knowingly increase the burden on the health system with a nonchalant attitude of “it won’t affect me anyway because I am young”. Do these people not have parents, grandparents, friends and neighbours who will be affected by the virus? Do these people not wish for their loved ones to receive health care when it is needed? How little disregard do they have for the wellbeing of healthcare workers who are risking themselves to help the community?

There has been just a slow trickle of patients this week, one here and one there. The rate of admission into the ICU is slow enough that we have time to pause and reflect on our practices, trying to finetune everything so we know what to do when the rush of patients arrives. We have been preparing for weeks and the preparation itself is mentally exhausting. It feels deceptively slow right now, the ICU cleared of patients in anticipation for the tsunami that hasn’t hit. I found myself even wondering at times if we over-reacted, but just a quick glance at the news shows that the tsunami is real in other places. We are just on the flat part of the curve, and we desperately hope our social isolation measures have been enough.

It has now been a week since I left my family in Sydney and quarantined myself. I feel a huge sense of social responsibility towards them, and I have decided not to go back to Sydney until I know for sure that I will not be giving them the virus. That means I have to wait for one of three scenarios to arise 

 

(1) The covid-19 crisis is over and numbers of infections have ground to zero

(2) I contract covid-19 and recover to gain immunity

(3) I or one of my family members becomes critically ill with covid-19 and we have to say goodbye.

The methodical analytical part of my brain has spat out these scenarios, but none of them feel real right now. The coming weeks will be a huge physical challenge if we must work massive hours, and an even greater emotional challenge being in social isolation and dealing with the stresses of work. I have never thought so hard about my self-care ever. 

I have also never been imbued with such a strong sense of survival – every fiber of my being is screaming I want to survive! I want to stay physically well and mentally well. I want to come out of the other side of this and chalk it up to another disaster I have experienced and learned from. I look so much forward to that day when we are talking about all this in the historical sense.

But right now, we must live one day at a time.

Covid diary, day 1

I've had the last 10 days off since my friend E was visiting from Toronto. We had many things planned but it all fell apart when Trudeau's wife tested positive and Canadia started to crack down hard on Covid. When Trudeau made his speech imploring all Canadians to go home, E went home early (a lot of stress involved indeed). I then spent the next few days in a reverie, doing some gardening in my dad's garden and tidying up my things.

At the end of the reverie I said goodbye to my family. I had decided already that I would not return home, because I could not risk infecting them. It was heartwrenching to tell them that I would see them again only when it was all over, or if I had been infected and had immunity, or if any of us were gravely ill and it was to say goodbye. I felt like I was never going to see them again. 

I knew that I would be jumping straight in the deep end of the covid crisis, and I tried to mentally brace myself. But still I did not feel prepared to walk in in the morning, straight into a patient who required intubation for mechanical ventilation.

Being the most risky time of the ICU admission by virtue of the greatest aerosol generation risk, I knew it was going to be a tricky exercise. Ordinary folks in the community might think the government has given us all the gear to cope with this, but with the very first intubation of a known Covid-positive patient in my ICU, we already had equipment shortages. It was depressing to think of what will come in the coming weeks.

Putting on the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) took almost an hour for the whole team, and the actual intubation task itself was short. An audience of around 30 doctors and nurses gathered to watch, though I wasn't sure what they were watching! It was theatrical and psychologically taxing, I felt like I was in the Big Brother House. Overcoming my own Impostor Syndrome at that moment was hard, but I managed to hold it together.

My current stressors are that we will run out of equipment (though I know we actually can't cross that bridge till we get there) and the fact that our PPE is vastly different to what we see on television, and what our colleagues have used overseas. One only has to turn on any TV channel to see doctors in hazmat suits with full body coverage and proper fitting goggles. We have to make do with a knee length gown which exposes our lower legs and neck. Even with balaclavas that we sourced from theatre, there was still a good amount of skin exposed. Our goggles are poorly fitting and my goggles fogged up which made me question whether my mask was fitted well. I scrubbed my face to drynses with soap afterwards and felt that I was not satisfactorily protected. Afterwards, every person I spoke to said something along the lines of

1. The government decided this
2. All the hospitals get the same gear
3. There is no evidence for more gear anyway

The more times I repeated my concerns about infection, the more frustrated I felt as everyone repeated the same official standpoints. One of my colleagues thanked me for being the "guinea pig", which did not help. Eventually about 3 hours after the intubation, I completely crashed and had a cry at work, not something that happens to me very often. Then my other colleague told me that the only way I can protest is by refusing to work or quitting my job.

All in all, it has been a very emotional first day. I coped by going for a walk, getting to the supermarket and realising I forgot to bring any cash or a card to pay for groceries, watering my own garden and cooking a healthy vegetable soup to nourish the soul. I'm still thinking about my own death, and I guess I will be thinking about this for the next few months...

In my kitchen: March 2020

Fires, Floods and Coronavirus.. what a 2020 we are off to! In between times, at least we can appreciate the IMK project around the world.

How I love hotpots! My dad's partner has a secret family sauce which comprises sesame paste, chilli and a secret leek flower ingredient she brought in from China. It's so secret that I didn't get to see it being made. This hotpot was a real treat for my dad's birthday.

I do like my random sourdough projects but I had never thought of making a sourdough cake till I realised the baking powder in my house had solidified into a giant rock. So I used Barney to raise this fruit cake for my dad's birthday cake. It worked surprisingly well!

We are also using sourdough for all Chinese yeast related projects, such as these delicious steamed  pork buns.

And these pan fried pockets stuffed with chive and egg. With a crispy outer, a soft bite (apparently the trick is hot water in half of the dough) and a delicious savoury filling, we couldn't stop eating these!

The garden has been a bit on the quiet side this year, possibly relating to air pollution from the fires? Our choko vine died in the extreme heat of early January and it doesn't look like there will be any chokos this year.

We do have lots of snake beans that we are fighting to save from animals that keep munching them through the night, and some of these lovely gourds that resemble zucchini in a lady like form.

And lots of okra for stir fry and for teas (Chinese traditional medicine says it's good for diabetes - who knows!)

Since moving to Newcastle I've also brought some tomato plants across from my dad's garden. Once they settled in I even got a few cherry tomatoes!

Onto the Food and Music series



I made these shallot pancakes using sourdough (of course) for a Chinese dinner we had. Rolling these out and studding the dough with shallots was super fun. These were crispy, flaky and just the right amount of chew.



Our Chinese dinner of steamed bream (left), tofu with mushrooms (top), garlic & chilli prawns (bottom right) and stir fried garden weed with snow peas went down a treat. We ate these with Schubert's Rosamunde, which came into my head one morning after a dream. We also played some reverse piano trios with me on cello and the cellist on piano - Haydn's Gypsy trio and Beethoven's Op 1 No. 3. Playing the cello is super fun and challenging!

Another piano duet, another plum tart! Stone fruit has been really good this year. We ate these with the next instalment of the Beethoven project (we are playing all the Beethoven string quartets arranged for piano 4 hand), the Op 18 No. 5, as well as a selection of modern dances.



I'll finish with one of the best loaves I've produced lately. This had a lovely rise and a golden colour with nice open crumb. I think sourdough teaches me to be patient and understanding of what the dough needs - pretty much a good philosophy for self care. I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the IMK series - thanks Sherry!

Dream: Gunshot in a pseudo night club

In this dream, I'm in the nightclub district of a city that I do not recognise. But I think somehow it must be in Germany? I am there with Em and her ex, and the three of us are looking for a particular nightclub.


The first thing we must do is pick up some cash, and the cash is dispensed from a shop with no ATM in sight. The cash comes in the form of a stack of bills, nestled neatly inside a cardboard box. We pick them up, feeling the gentle rustle of ancient currency - is it possibly cash from another age?


We find the shop that we are looking for, and it actually looks like a card shop. Outside are large turning displays that show a wide array of cards each in their plastic sleeves - but the cash is from an age before plastic perhaps? I want to stop and look at the cards but the other two are in a hurry, so I glance longingly at their bright colours and move on.


Inside there are more cards displayed on magazine racks, and also an assortment of clothes. We are still looking for the entrance to the nightclub, and I deduce that the entrance must be hidden somewhere inside the shop. I look around for more clues, but it seems like an ordinary shop selling knickknacks. There are lots of people around, but they all appear to be shopping.


Suddenly the lights go out, and it is almost completely dark even though it was a fading evening light outside. There is some dim blue fluorescence that illuminates people's faces, somewhat like the lighting of a nightclub. I feel confused by this sudden change in lighting.


Then just as suddenly as the darkness descended, the sound started. First it sounded like popcorn popping, discrete short staccato bursts. Then the sound comes even closer, and it is so loud my eardrums are hurting. I turn around and see Em holding a gun, and it looks like a fake gun.


I watch in slow motion as she raises the gun and points it at her ex. A real bullet (or at least it looks like a real one) comes out of the gun ever so slowly and hits him in the shoulder. He is frozen and time slows down so much that it seems like he could have dodged the bullet, but he doesn't and falls to the ground.


Next she turns towards me and there is a menacing glint in her eyes. I do not recognise this person, I think to myself. I hear the pop as the bullet is released from the gun, coming straight towards me. Again it is going in super slow motion, an elongated cylindrical copper bullet that looks almost comically like a lolly. I watch it come towards me with some kind of fascination. I lean back instinctively, hoping to miss the course of the bullet.


At that moment I glance up at the time and it is 1:30am.


Then I wake up. Did I get hit by the bullet? I don't know.

In my kitchen: February 2020

I have had a super busy month with the move to Newcastle, end of the clinical year and the chamber music society annual camp. It has just flown past, how could it be February already?

A couple of gorgeous loaves from my sourdough Barney to start 2020

So many snake beans from my dad's garden

A few chocolates my friend brought back from Russia

The last of the local beer from a brewery in Orange.

Since the dumpling master (my dad's partner) has returned to town, we have been having so many dumplings. She is truly the master of making the perfect dough (with sourdough too), the perfect filling and beautiful crimp.

Onto the Food and Music series...

We ate these lovely fresh plum tarts with my piano duet buddy who said "Sometimes in life, you just need a plum tart!" She is an incredible lady, always with some wise and sanguine words for young restless me! We ate these with a serve of the arrangement of Beethoven's String quartet Op 18 No. 3 (string quartets arranged for piano 4 hand are super interesting), Ravel's Ma Mere L'Oye and a few of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances.


One evening for my string quartet, we decided to have tagine. The other violinist made from scratch a wonderfully herbaceous chermoula and cooked it into a rich chicken tagine with deliciously plump olives and the sauciest potatoes. 

I discovered the trick to sourdough pitas. After rolling out the dough discs and letting them rest for 30min, blast them on full heat in the oven and the rapid rise creates the pocket!

A deliciously fresh fattoush salad which went so well with the tagine on this hot day.

Here is the tagine stuffed into the pita pocket. We ate these with the Mozart String quartet in D minor, Beethoven's String quartet Op 18 No.1 and the Clara Schumann piano trio.

Once a year, the Chamber Music Society runs a massive camp. About 110 people gather at the University of Wollongong for a 4 day extravaganza filled with music, food and wine. It truly is the highlight of the year. I stayed this year in a flat with my usual string quartet and Barney came along for the ride as well - freshly baked bread every day is a treat!

This cheese & tomato foccacia we enjoyed for one of our lunches. I think the sourdough at camp is going to become an annual feature. 

The highlights of my camp were not 1, not 2 but 3 Dvorak sessions (his string quintet "American", string sextet in A and piano quintet); the Brahms string sextet no. 1, an all time favourite; Death and the Maiden while drunk and the Faure piano quartet. We had such a great time playing the Faure piano quartet that we had to play the slow movement another time and I decided this would be the piece I would like played at my funeral.

I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the In My Kitchen series. Thanks for hosting Sherry!

In my kitchen: January 2020

I had a couple of weeks staycation in December which was just blissful, especially since I worked all through the holiday weeks after that.

The first week of my staycation, I got rather addicted to grilled cheese.

I've realised the secret for me is to put some mustard on the bread and topping it with both tasty and parmesan cheese - great texture and flavour!

I experimented with sourdough hoppers - a simple recipe of rice flour, coconut cream and a dollop of sourdough starter, fermented till ripe and fried up in a hopper pan.

The second week of my staycation, I got back into swimming. I didn't swim at all the summer of 2018-2019 since the car accident, so I was so very happy to be back in the water and painfree! It gave me such a fantastic appetite that I planned a challah party with all my childless friends. It was also a pseudo farewell party as I'm moving to Newcastle very soon.

We started out with the standard 3-strand challah. As a joke, each next guest had to make one more strand than the last.

They were all spectacular, but this one was particularly golden and burnished!

There was also a vegan challah for my dear friend B and this turned out super well. The honey is replaced by maple syrup, the eggs by aquafaba and the milk by olive oil. The colour is paler with a gentle goldenness. The texture was even more light and fluffy than the non-vegan version.

Finally the piece de resistance - a sourdough chocolate babka. Words could not describe how tenderly this pulled apart, softly oozing chocolate and entrancing every guest into a sugary delirium.

On the garden front, my dad has harvested so much bok choy this month.

We love this purple weed vegetable which takes over the whole garden in summer and seems to grow at an incredible rate.

Perfect in a stir fry with a bit of garlic. Also great eaten raw in salad and in soups.

Finally in the music & food series...

No pic, but it was extremely humbling to have a failed loaf for the first time in maybe 2 years! I went to the Christmas party for the Barbarians (a musical medical group in Newcastle) and promised a loaf of Barney but he over-rose the night before and sadly had no oomph left in him. I had worked during the day and had no time to get something else... so as we say in Chinese, I hardened my scalp and showed up with the hideous flat loaf. He still got eaten! Along with lots of increasingly drunk singing of Christmas carols and the Hallelujah chorus.

My regular string quartet has been busy for Christmas but I did catch my other semi-regular piano quartet for Brahms' piano quartet no. 3 in C minor, probably my favourite piano quartet of all time (it's either that one or the Faure, also in C minor). We also played some of the Schumann piano quartet afterwards but it was too much energetic. Here we ate Barney with cheeses, egg salad, a smoked trout salad and ricotta spinach rolls. A proper feast! The violinist announced that it may be our last Christmas together since she recently had a stroke, who knows what the future will bring..

On New Year's Eve I celebrated the arrival of the new decade with my piano duet buddy. We are doing the Beethoven project where we play 4 hand arrangements of the Beethoven string quartets, one at a time. We are still in the Op 18s and enjoying every moment of it.

Another month, another ode to carbs. I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the In My Kitchen series, thanks Sherry!  

In my kitchen: December 2019

I went to Toronto for 10 days in November for a conference and to catch up with friends. As always in Toronto, there was so much friendship and joy. Lots of people ask me how I cope with my job when they find out what I do for a living (even lots of my patients) - I think I cope predominantly by eating and playing music!


We visited the Big Apple just east of Toronto on the way out to visit Emily's childhood home.

The apples have such incredible flavour in Ontario, none of that tasteless floury stuff you get after months of refridgeration. We played a few cello-piano duets here, Granados' Orientale, the first Beethoven cello sonata in F and the first Brahms cello sonata. Em's childhood friend also was inspired by the music making and after a 20 year absence from the piano, was convinced to join us on 6-hand piano arrangement of Mozart's Alla Turca and Schubert's famous Military March. Lots of fun all around!

 

I also picked up some apple cider vinegar and apple cider from the Big Apple.

The weather was really quite cold in Toronto this time. The first couple of days I got some excellent photos of the autumn leaves, but then there was a huge snowstorm and I was distracted by all the white after that.

We were gifted this beautiful blackberry crostata by Em's friend Maria whose husband is a real green thumb and makes his own jam from backyard blackberries every year. We enjoyed this lovely introduction to crostatas, a soft eggy pastry with a filling of jam.

Also in Em's kitchen, we had a dumpling party with pork and Chinese cabbage dumplings. Making the dumpling dough is always the most fun. We also ate these with artichokes (becoming a bit of a joke theme for our travels to look for artichokes) and a simple bok choy stir fry. We ate these with a selection of wonderful pieces - Shostakovich's 3 pieces for 2 violins and piano, Bach's Double violin concerto and the Beethoven String trio no.1 in Eb.

One afternoon we also enjoyed this delicious truffle cheese with the heady scent of truffle, along with eggplant dip and Egyptian artichoke salad (because... artichokes) from Maha's, my new favourite brunch place in Toronto. And coffee in tiny Romanian cups, Maria's biscotti, fresh ricotta cannoli.. what an afternoon tea it was!

Organic fruit beer.. my friend's favourite. A weird citrus-y beer that is like a beer-cider cross.

Em is the queen of challah. She has now perfected the easiest method to form this beautiful plaited bread and she showed it to me this time.

We made a four strand challah first.

Then a five strand challah!

I really admire her ability in eyeballing such a complex dough - I always thought that bread had to be measured precisely, or at least that's what everyone told me until I started making my own bread. But she really takes it to the next level with her bread intuition.


Back in my own kitchen, one of our string quartets was cancelled due to the bushfires making it too hazy to drive. I had seen bread animals online but never tried to make one.

Here he is, I call him Pete the vegan crocodile. My scale battery also ran flat so I had to eyeball this dough but it turned out just fine. I must say he looks rather like a platypus..

After basically 6 straight weeks away Barney needed feeding, so I ate a lot of sourdough pancakes!

In more news from the music & food series...

We had these lovely zucchini flowers stuffed with haloumi. We were only three that night so we ended up playing a bit from the first Schubert piano trio, the Bach double violin concerto and the Debussy piano trio.

Our quartet had our Christmas party and I based this on Not Quite Nigella's Christmas tree wreath recipe. It was a fairly easy adaptation with sourdough which rose a bit like a pizza base but still had crunchy "fingers". We played Schubert's Death and the Maiden, Dvorak's American and a bit of the Brahms first piano quartet - though my thumbs gave up by then!

What a year of delicious food and wonderful music it has been!  I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen events.