The esteemed Adam Platt did a Q&A with Flynn McGarry and wrote about their conversation for NYMag/Grub Street. If you haven’t heard of Flynn McGarry, he is the child prodigy who began cooking meals out of his kitchen at 11. He taught himself on YouTube.
The question and answer that kept me thinking was, “How did COVID change diners’ tastes in the city?
Honestly, I have no clue. I am so confused by what this city wants right now, and I think the city is confused, too. There are all these new people, and they want everything. But then people are confused when they encounter something that’s a little bit different. It’s hard to get a handle on what people want right now.
Confused is such a great word to describe the feeling in the air. It took us a few days to be jarred with Covid. We all had to hibernate as if we were living in a science fiction movie. Humans adjust, and we did, but there was no room to process. Then one day, not that long ago, we all decided this shit was over. I am vaccinated. I am not going to die, and it will suck if I get it (or get it again), but so be it.
Coming out of Covid was one step at a time, but now we are trotting, but nobody is really running. It is as if we are all sitting on a mesa looking for the next mountain or at a fork with five tines, and we aren’t quite sure which way to go. It is strange, and it is confusing.
Every industry is confused; everything is being shaken, cleaning up waste, buckling down, unclear how this recession is different, how does the economy come back, what should the economy look like, and through all of this, we are still processing Covid while watching the country being taken apart bit by bit forcing each state to be run by the minority. What comes out of that?
I am extremely confused.