Picture of the Day: Pandemic Sourdough

A delicious sourdough with flax seeds and chia seeds

When the coronavirus pandemic erupted in Hong Kong in late January, supermarkets ran out of toilet paper, cleaning supplies, rice... and flour.

Amateur bakers started making sourdough, a pretty time-consuming recipe that takes around 30 hours as the dough has to be stretched and folded every half hour for a few hours before it is baked in the oven.

A beautiful-looking loaf with heft too!

I'm very lucky to have two friends who have decent-sized ovens at home and each have made a sourdough for me recently.

One is a busy mother of two who bakes when she has time or uses it as an opportunity to de-stress, the other is a hotel general manager, who has a very quiet hotel these days and now has more time to attend to his hobby.

He takes meticulous notes of the process like a methodical scientist and takes pictures. Every person who has received his loaf has praised how delicious it is.

Earlier this week I received an organic cranberry sourdough loaf from him and it was very professional looking, even using a banneton, the ridged clay-pot to get the circular pattern on the top.

When I get bread I slice it up and then put half the loaf in the freezer and the other half to eat in the next few days.

Inside is moist with lots of cranberries

I haven't eaten so much bread till this pandemic, but as a comfort food, these homemade loaves are like a warm hug from thoughtful friends.

Brick-Sized Art

A beautiful hot day looking at Central and Admiralty

Today I started out on a mid-morning walk with the aim of hitting 15k. That meant walking from Kennedy Town to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and a detour to the Upper House Hotel for a break for a gourmet cookie and lemonade before heading back home.

Someone writing mini calligraphy!

It was really hot out -- 30 degrees at least, but it was a good time to be out with hardly anyone walking along the waterfront. With the 123 new coronavirus cases reported today -- a new record -- it was even more important to be social distancing as much as possible.

When I was approaching the convention centre, on the ground I could see something in between the bricks. Upon closer inspection, I saw dioramas of everyday life in the size of a brick!

There were three that I could find. One featured an outdoor patio or rooftop setting with house plants sitting on some tiles and a table with tiny pieces of paper with calligraphy written on them. Someone was practicing calligraphy, writing Chinese idioms. An ink stone was there along with a brush.

Someone's room with magazines and suitcase

Another one looked like a room of a young person, with a skipping rope on a stool, some magazines, unfinished homework and a suitcase. Unfortunately moisture got into this particular diorama, and with the noon day sun it was hard to take a photo without my shadow in it!

The last scene seemed like dinner on the table for three people with three pairs of chopsticks on the table. There's scrambled eggs with chives, a plate of stir-fried kale with garlic, steamed minced pork patty, steamed fish and a tureen of soup that had been simmering for hours. Oh yes and three bowls of rice.

There are also some old pictures on the table, passport photos and a class photo. Off to the side is a small table for a child making a toy airplane.

Dinner for three is ready on the table

These brick-sized scenes must be fairly new -- they have changed the "art" selection around the convention centre recently. But if I didn't look too closely I would never have noticed these dioramas on the ground! I didn't look too closely around the area to see if there was any information about the artist. But now I have another excuse to walk over there again...

Toilet Paper, Masks and Rice are Prized Commodities

Two women clutching their prized toilet paper packs in Hong Kong

Last night the shelves that were supposed to stock toilet paper were bare in a large supermarket in my neighbourhood. It was completely cleared out, and after seeing this in several stores over several days, it's worrying.

It's a sad indictment of the Hong Kong government when people are desperately searching for toilet paper even though supermarkets and distributors have tried to reassure the public there is more than enough bog roll to go around.

The largest supermarket in the district is empty of toilet paper

This morning I was in Central on my way to the gym when I spied someone carrying a pack of toilet paper, and she was coming from a supermarket nearby. I decided to check it out as I had never been to Food Le Parc, a bizarre name for a supermarket owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing.

And bingo! There were several shoppers there each with two packs of toilet paper in each of their carts. The price was more expensive than usual, but heck -- you need it, right?

I also got a roll of paper towels, as I was truly running out.

Afterwards, I clutched my toilet paper pack close to my chest and carried it to the gym where I stored it in my locker. Luckily I didn't get any strange looks.

Anthony Lam says there is more than enough rice for a month

However when I came back to Kennedy Town and went up the escalator to the wet market, one woman going down spied my prized possession and asked if I had gotten it from the pharmacy. "I got it in Central," I replied, much to her surprise.

Meanwhile it seems rice is still also a precious commodity, and Anthony Lam Sai-ho, a rice importer and member of the Trade and Industry Department's Customer Liaison Group for Rice, tried to tell the public there were no need to panic when it came to enough rice in the city.

He said the government's rice reserve as well as the industry's own stockpile would be enough to meet the city's demand for more than a month. But even if Hong Kong needed more rice, it could be imported within 10 days or less, as most of it is sourced from Thailand and Vietnam.

Most of Hong Kong's rice comes from Thailand and Vietnam

Lam said the city's 229 importers were required to set aside 17 percent of their monthly import for reserve, which at the end of January was at 13,000 tonnes, enough for about 15 days. And then there is another stockpile by importers that was about 14,000 tonnes, again enough for more than two weeks' consumption.

However, people are still stockpiling on rice, emptying shelves of the staple faster than shop staff can restock them.





My relatives who came back from northern Japan managed to secure enough masks for their family of three for three months. They scoured every pharmacy, supermarket and convenience shop for them. In some places they could only buy packs of three, in other places they managed to buy boxes of 60.

A lot of people are shopping for masks in Japan

On their flight back to Hong Kong this morning, they noticed elderly passengers had lots of luggage and assumed they too were hunting for masks, a more important concern than seeing the sights. They also saw many young families from Hong Kong who were also on holiday since school is still out until mid March.

One more thing about toilet paper -- the Consumer Council has also advised people not to hoard toilet paper, and that they should not store their numerous packs of toilet paper in the bathroom where it is more humid and germs often thrive. Better to stick them in a dry ventilated space.

People won't be needing to buy toilet paper for a while... right?