Start a Virtual Recipe Club
I’ve recently been using FaceTime-ing and Zooming, and I’ve found it helps to have an action, topic, or some focal point to orient calls. Anyway, apart from the general restrained – but still crushing! – feelings of existential fear. Virtual happy hours are good and good, but not everyone drinks, and not everyone is thirsty as often as these calls. If this all sounds familiar to you, shifting the focus from drinks to food – through a virtual recipe club – might be the right move.
The premise for a virtual recipe club is simple: you all pick a recipe, do it together using Zoom (or your preferred video chat service ), and then eat it while enjoying each other’s company and comparing notes. If someone is having trouble with a dish, other club members can help them figure out where they went wrong. If anyone has tips, tricks, or particularly successful modifications, they can share them with the class. You can even make different versions of the same recipe – consider a classic wine cocktail – and discuss what worked and what didn’t.
In addition to the social element, a recipe club can give you a little extra motivation to prepare yourself a delicious meal, which can be a problem if your stress response is to eat bowls of cereal in bed. If you are not attracted to the joy of eating, you may be attracted by the promise of meaningful social interaction.