(Edited out original part b/c I misunderstood your post)
The problem is that, w/o widespread testing, it’s really hard to say what the rate of infection is, right? Is part of it that people in Beverly Hills and Brentwood more likely to get tested?
Yes. Of course. As you know well, the quoted rates of infection in any community (or country for that matter) are completely useless without VERY widespread testing of both the symptomatic and the asymptomatic with very robust tests, or by antibody testing later. Neither of those are happening here.
The Eater article referenced The SGV Was Weeks Ahead of LA on Coronavirus, and Maybe Still Is - Eater LA was incredibly irresponsible and naive from my point of view as a physician.
Perhaps the true rate of infection and death in the SGV will be lower because they were quicker to don masks and gloves. Maybe they go out less or maybe they go out more than other communities during this crisis. Maybe they have more co-morbidities, maybe less. Maybe they have less ventilators. Perhaps the infection and death rates will be higher because there are lots of elderly there. Who the fuck knows right now? But for Eater to make those inferences is just dumb.
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It’s absolutely ludicrous that Eater can even insinuate such baseless reasoning and simply point to the total # of cases as proof. Going by that writer’s reasoning, are we to assume that the vast amount of cities with 0 positive cases did an even “better” job, whatever that means, of prepping for this pandemic?
Classic example of correlation doesn’t mean causation.
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I just pretend I’m positive. So you test negative that day . Cool . Two days later your positive but you don’t know it because of the one test you had . WTF .
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I once thought of Eater as a great resource for keeping up with restaurants. They lost me with the constant scandals and ‘dirtsheets’ on the the front page. This discussion on their false assumption based on little evidence, is another example of the company trying too hard to be more important than what it is, and spreading potentially misleading information.
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Just read the article (thanks for posting; I was too lazy to look it up for myself).
I found the first 5 paragraphs to be… gross. Gloating over presumed superiority is not to my taste and, IMHO, only furthers an “us vs. them” perspective. And irrational hoarding is irrational hoarding and, AFAIK, does nothing to lower one’s risk of contracting COVID-19. ::shrug::
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Yes, I will continue to order delivery from restaurants as long as possible. I hate to cook (and I also could never cook well all the different ethnic food I prefer), and I only received about half the groceries of my previous order from Ralphs.
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My haul from Underwood Family Farms this afternoon in Moorpark. Instacart isn’t working out for me (a long delay now) so I decided to take a longish drive to support our local farm. Strawberries are sweeeeet!
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So peaceful and quiet shopping at Cavaretta’s, my local Italian Market. They are usually packed around noon for lunch. Support your “mom and pop” neighborhood markets! They need your support as well.
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M. Georgina
Order by Thursday at 10am, pickup on Friday.
I love, love their bread.
Chaumont - Beverly Hills - An unexpected visit
I needed to make a quick stop on Beverly Dr for work. And I mean, who could resist an open & quiet Chaumont with available parking? Not me! We have lots of provisions and are doing a good job complying with the pleads to “shelter at home“ - this includes resisting the urge to satisfy whims. But! There are limits to the sacrifice, so…
Wanting to get in & out and not ask questions I quickly selected Croissants and two tasty looking Little Cakes - a Citrus & an Almond, with Almond being the favorite - firm, nice textured cake, soft almond paste and a thin, buttery, caramelized, chewy bottom. The Croissant was that french buttery, flaky, fluffy goodness you know and love. 
Chaumont Provisions
Again, wanting to get in & out I took some snaps of the tables as a PSA for seekers but didn’t need or buy anything. Now, looking at said snaps I see a few things I definitely could’ve used. 
P.S. When driving away I happened to spy Maude and looks like they also have a nice, micro-market out front.
Bright spots in troubling times!
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Good article today in NYT. The headline by Tejal Rao
Is My Takeout Risking Lives or Saving Restaurants?
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Good one. It made me think of and wonder what Jonathan Gold would be doing and writing about this time.
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Joy from Tacos 1986 spoke about why he opened the Beverly location just a few days ago.
He was set to open at the end of March but put that on hold indefinitely. He forgot to remove a Help Wanted sign in the window and was shocked by how many applications came in. He felt like he owed it to the people he could hire to offer them a job, even though he said the third location adds to the stress and fear he already feels operating two other locations during this crisis.
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I went opening day last week for Beverly, had to support.
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For those of you who like Joy from 1986, don’t watch his episode of Chef’s Night Out. Dude is so cringe.
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smooches 
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Read over the article a couple times.
Was interested in the section where the author points to the problem of a worker getting sick, thus putting co-workers at risk. What really interested me was how it leads to paranoia and causes the whole staff to go into panic. Haven’t heard much about that side of the story. Wish the article examined it more.
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It’s a good article. I don’t think there’s any 100% morally good options here. If we don’t patronize restaurants, the only other option is cooking ourselves, because we still need to eat. In order to cook, we need to buy groceries, which means that underpaid workers with little protection are going to be putting themselves at risk stocking warehouses and shelves, ringing up our orders or delivering them.
Unless you have multiple months’ worth of provisions at home or own a totally self-sustaining farm and are the only person who tends it, I can’t think of any way to eat right now that doesn’t endanger another person.
Getting food from restaurants doesn’t seem worse than getting groceries in terms of endangering others, because in both cases other people are working in risky conditions. Personally, I’d rather buy from restaurants where at least there’s a smaller number of people working there, and there’s a positive aspect in sustaining a small business at risk of going under.
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