Easter 2020 - quarantine

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 On 7th April 2020, a state of emergency was declared in Japan. Our company followed the request from the government to close the office for a month.

At office, our colleagues and I said farewell to each other, promising to meet next month. We have never felt the words “Take care” meant something – some colleagues even laughed at the implication of the words too exaggerated. But we needed to take care of ourselves more than ever, to meet again in May.

I made a mental to-do list while on furlough. A month at home was quite long. On top of some of the homework I was assigned from my supervisor, I decided to walk, bake, and read some books.

For baking, I decided to borrow some ideas from the celebration of Easter.

As anyone working in the travel industry, I was always conscious of holidays abroad – Shrove Tuesday, Easter, May Day, Bank holidays, the Ascension Day, Ramadan, Christmas, and many more. We needed to make sure that the tour schedules will fit in to avoid the closure of some of the tourist attractions during the national holidays.

The Easter 2020 fell on 12 April. I normally do not celebrate the Easter as I am non-Christian. My Christian friends do celebrate the Easter, busy preparing coloured-eggs for egg hunt at their churches every year. I am not too sure if the Easter is celebrated widely in Japan except the Christian communities. I heard about the Easter mentioned on television, particularly by some of the amusement parks advertising the Easter events. Perhaps people with small children might be celebrating the Easter, preparing chocolate eggs and some other treats, but I am not too sure.

At the time I was mulling over my to-do list, an old memory hit me – the days my family spent few years in England. It was such a long time ago and my memory was already fading, but I do recollect that I had some fun during the Easter, and tasted some of the Easter delicacies. And I hoped God will perhaps forgive us non-Christians mock-celebrating the Easter this year, while we needed to lock ourselves in at home for our lives.

I searched some of the recipes for the Easter foods in the UK on the internet, and found few items which might be easy enough for trying.

The first one that I put my hands on was Hot Cross Buns. 

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I haven’t done much baking in the past few years, certainly not some breads. But it seemed worth trying during the quarantine period. I was interested to see if my taste buds still remember the taste of the buns that we used to buy at a supermarket in England long time ago. Also, breads need well kneading and shaping, which should be a fun to do.

The buns are supposed to have clear criss-cross on the top, but came up like these.

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I thought the buns became too soft. But I did recall the scent of spices and taste of citrus and raisins. My parents, who have better memories of back then when we were in England, said they were all right. It may not be anything similar to the buns which were sold commercially, but they brought in some of the good memories on my tongue.

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Recipe: Hot cross buns recipe - BBC Food

The second one I tried was pancakes. I understand that I should have made some in February, before Lent. But back in February I never thought that I would be locking myself at home like this. Besides, pancake is quite simple to make. We enjoyed the scent of lemon and the sweet and sour taste.

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Recipe: Pancake recipe - BBC Food

#easter2020 #Buns #Hotcrossbuns #Pancake #Rabbit #Chocolate #Quarantine

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