2020 Open Thread
By 
I hardly need to state the hell of this horrible year. We beat Trump, but only barely and with hardly any repudiation of his fascism, which only keeps rising. We nearly lost the House and while there’s still a chance we barely take the Senate, Susan Collins is still there among others. We had the worst pandemic in a century that the U.S. botched in a way that it peak American incompetence. Climate change became ever more obvious as the West burned like Atlanta and the rest of the world was no better. COVID killed a friend of mine; miraculously my in-laws in their 80s not only survived but didn’t even get that sick. Of course travel plans and other personal things were destroyed but that stuff barely even counts this year. Country musicians died like flies, from John Prine and K.T. Oslin to Charley Pride and Tony Rice, it was a grim year for the genre’s legends. The Supreme Court moved from very bad to much worse. Etc.
If there’s one tiny silver lining, it’s that I, like many people, used the reality of COVID to get back in touch with my kitchen and, if I may say so, I became a pretty fair cook over the past nine months. I am no creative person, but I did learn to follow some good recipes Here’s a few of my favorites:
Honey soy salmon with charred scallions and black sesame seeds
Pork chops with peaches and basil
Roasted autumn vegetables with walnuts and miso sauce (I just made this one again the other day it’s really great)
Anyway, that’s my attempt to find something positive to say about 2020.
This is an open thread for this dumpster fire of a year. I’d like to say that 2021 will be better, but why would I think that?