Response to pandemic from a University student editor: "like the flick of the switch"

"....students at Gannon University, we saw our educational careers and lives do a full 180 in a split second. From anticipating having a quiz on Monday and preparing by enjoying the 2020 St. Patrick’s Day festivities, my intentions switched, to how to fully move out of my dorm within days and how I would suddenly say goodbye to my many senior friends..", Michael Guido

Gannon Univerity in Erie Pennsylvania, opinion in the era of the pandemic response. Published in The Gannon Knight

A heartfelt opinion essay that will be frozen in academic time.

Each generation has had a defining moment of its time; for some, it was the attack on Pearl Harbor, for others, it was the chaos of the summer of 1968, and for some it was the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Yet for us, our defining moment and/or period will be the time when the world came to a standstill because of the coronavirus.
Within a matter of days, we saw utter hysteria and madness descend on the world.

We saw all major North American professional sports leagues suspend operations, colleges across the country send students home and move online, and businesses close until further notice at the direction of their state’s chief executive.

We saw a travel ban put in place that served as a barrier for international students who may have been hoping to return home to be with their families.

We saw the president of the United States declare a national emergency, which escalated the severity of the situation to another level. (Maine Writer - unfortunately the Trump administration was too slow to respond. An agressive response to the coronavirus could have mitigated the spread of the pandemic and kept the outbreaks segmented from the population at large.)

As this situation relates to students at Gannon University, we saw our educational careers and lives do a full 180 in a split second.
From anticipating having a quiz on Monday and preparing by enjoying the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, my intentions switched to how to fully move out of my dorm within days, and how I would suddenly say goodbye to my many senior friends whom I won’t be able to see again before their graduation.

Many students have attempted to grapple with the reality that all social events will no longer continue, meaning no formals for fraternities and sororities, no retreats, no Omega week, no International Night and a host of other events that students were excited for.

For many student-athletes, all the preparation and excitement that had been built up for the competitions this semester went for nothing in the flick of a switch.

Students who hadn’t prepared to return to their homes for at least a month and a half were spending Friday frantically calling their parents trying to book flights, store housing goods, and vacate campus before stricter rules and regulations are enforced.

Students in a major not required to remain on campus have been in touch with their professors to figure out how the rest of their semester looks and are under pressure to ensure they pass their classes and receive the credits needed to continue their progress toward a degree.

I don’t mean for this all to sound querulous, as the severity of the situation required our school’s administration to make difficult decisions under increasingly harsh circumstances and public pressure to take action mounted.
However, it doesn’t remove the disappointment and sadness many in the student body are feeling this week.

With the world the way it is at the moment, it surely is a time our generation will not soon forget.

MICHAEL GUIDO  guido002@gannon.edu

Competitive restaurant marketing

Loved reading about this creative marketing with a distinctive French flair! Good write up for a French restaurant! Published in Tables for Two by Hannah Goldfield, in The New Yorker magazine:

I particularly enjoyed this restaurant review because of the attention given to the use of cleverly inserted French words. Merci!

Maine Writer ~Who Knew....In Brooklyn?
Le Crocodile’s Bold Brooklyn Ambitions by Hannah Goldfield

On the ground floor of Williamsburg’s tony Wythe Hotel, in Brooklyn, New York,  the energetic young chefs behind Chez Ma Tante are focussed on perfecting—and occasionally revising—dozens of French classics.

" Un plats principaux" - Poulet frites, or half a roast chicken with fries, dripping with herb jus. Photograph by Cole Wilson.

BROOKLYN NY- The answer to the question about what you should order at Le Crocodile, a new French restaurant in Williamsburg, is hiding in plain sight. On the postcard that comes with your check and on the books of matches and toothpicks by the host stand, a series of charmingly naïf* illustrations that depicts a chicken, standing alone or disappearing into the toothy, gaping jaw of a somewhat gleeful-looking reptile. 

At Le Crocodile, you are the crocodile—get ready to toss le poulet lustily down your gullet. Half of a roasted one comes dripping with jus and sprinkled with chopped parsley, its crisp skin the same shade of golden as the bistro-style French fries piled high beside it. 

It’s a thrillingly enormous portion of food, befitting this thrillingly enormous sort of restaurant, which took the place of Andrew Tarlow’s Reynard at the Wythe Hotel. The poulet frites is not instead of steak frites, it’s in addition to it—and Le Crocodile’s steak frites is not just plain old steak frites, it’s steak frites au poivre, meaning that the meat is encrusted in cracked peppercorn and finished with a velvety spoonful of pan sauce. The menu offers four varieties of pâté, plus a duck-and-rabbit rillette. There are leeks vinaigrette and leek gratin, pot-au-feu and cassoulet. There are six varieties of gin-and-tonic, and no fewer than twelve desserts: profiteroles and madeleines, flourless chocolate cake and chocolate pot de crème, tarte au citron and tarte tatin.

The chefs, Aidan O’Neal and Jake Leiber, mastered the art of the neighborhood restaurant with Chez Ma Tante, the French-ish place they opened in Greenpoint in 2017. At the Wythe, their ambition is bolder—Williamsburg has become an extension of Manhattan, the hotel’s swanky vibe would have you believe, and they can make it here, too. Le Crocodile is Brooklyn’s answer to Balthazar; with just a few smart design tweaks (higher wainscoting, built-in booths, velvet chairs), the dining room has been transformed from rustic wedding venue to glamorous brasserie**.

As at Balthazar, the menu’s breadth of fine-tuned favorites gives it an edge over French restaurants with smaller menus that tend toward the novel or the esoteric. At Bar Bête, which opened in December, in Carroll Gardens, a mid-course omelette filled with peekytoe crabmeat, topped with togarashi, and served with seaweed butter overpromised and underdelivered; at Le Crocodile, a much simpler, technically perfect omelette, served with greens and lightly pickled chanterelles, held its own among the murderers’ row of plats principaux (translation means ~ "main dish").

This is not to say that Le Crocodile resists risk or trends entirely. One of the four pâtés is meatless, made with shiitake, maitake, and cremini mushrooms and achieves a remarkably convincing I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-liver texture. A pork chop is served with kale, anchovies, and a slice of burrata (which was described by a server as “a palate cleanser”); a gloriously fatty duck breast is strewn with sticky-sweet kumquats. You’ll find cacio-e-pepe orzo, and a crab salad with the spicy Japanese condiment yuzu kosho.
But what’s most exciting about Le Crocodile is that its young and energetic chefs seem focussed mainly on perfecting—and occasionally gently revising—an encyclopedia of classics. A plate of de-shelled escargot and thinly sliced fennel in a broth fragrant with Pernod was powerfully transportive. A French 75 made with Cognac left me wondering what I had against the stuff—it had seemed suited only for a snifter in a smoke-filled library or, worse, a trashy night club, but suddenly struck me as elegant and refreshing.

One evening, two women at the next table enjoyed separate orders of the roast chicken. At a moment in restaurant culture when “everything is meant to be shared” is practically a mandate, this seemed like a radical, liberating move, and one that a menu like this encourages. Even with a large party, you couldn’t possibly try everything in one visit, so you might as well order just exactly what you feel like. 

Share in pleasure, if not plates, then come back for more. 

*naive or ingenuous
**informal restaurant, especially one in France