This edition of Full Belly Files was originally emailed to subscribers on December 16, 2022. To receive Matt Kettmann’s food newsletter in your inbox each Friday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
After more than two years of doing most of the right things and getting rather lucky on the few times that I didn’t, COVID finally came for me this month.
Apparently, my steady diet of homegrown finger limes — just one of my self-prescribed preventative magics — was overtaken by one too many out-loud suggestions of my possible immunity to the pandemic. (Translation: I jinxed myself.) Of course, the karmic reasons why I got COVID doesn’t matter, nor really does how — although my junior-high-attending son who got a sore throat and tested positive right after we drove together for eight-plus hours over a recent weekend would probably explain that.
The blessed news is that neither of us got particularly sick. (Thanks, vaccines!) I spiked a high fever the evening I tested positive, and then came some very minor, albeit persistent congestion, only to be out-annoyed by the stubbornness of the virus itself, whose positive line stayed strong 10 days into our testing regime. I’ll be finally coming out of quarantine as you read this, having been primarily confined to my bedroom, backyard, and garage for a week and a half. (I did take my son to East Camino Cielo for a drive one afternoon, where we found plenty of snow on the north-facing ridges.)