Welcome to Covid and Chill, a Plurk book and cooking club to ward off quarantine blues and cabin fever.

This book club is specifically designed to not only swap recipes and cooking tips and try dishes you may not have ventured to before but also to wade into unfamiliar literary waters, while connecting with fellow quarantined book lovers and foodies.

The schedule is still being worked out so make sure to stay tuned. Until then, go ahead and introduce yourselves! Tell us your name, your favorite book to read to de-stress, and your best go-to meal to make.

Since I'm the mod for this account, I'll go first! My name is Chase, and I'm coming to you all the way from Rome, Italy, where I'm quarantined with my husband, my mom-in-law, two toddlers who now only speaking in CAPSLOCK, three dogs, and two cats.

My favorite book to read to chill out is...probably The Night Circus or the Reluctant Royals series by Alyssa Cole (my weakness is romance novels and YA books with peanut protagonists).

My go-to dish right now is probably either burrito bowls because they're hella simple to toss together or cacio e pepe because you can't really go wrong with pasta and cheese.

Oh and browned butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Amanda here, and I haven't read anything new in ages, I'm looking forward to suggestions. I just keep cycling through familiar things, and I'm back on a Raven Cycle kick, tbh. Definite weakness for YA/Fantasy in general, and things with happy endings these days lol

I have been making a lot of pasta, largely this one slightly modified, and... definitely need to branch out into something lighter, but finding things my dad will eat is like feeding that toddler that won't eat anything green.

Or fishy. Or that has ever been called 'healthy' in public.

I'm Tri, my comfort book is Spindle's End by Robin McKinley, which is of course a sleeping beauty retelling. My go-to dish, especially when I haven't made it to the grocery store in awhile (in other words, a week from now when I run out of fresh veggies) is probably mujadara, because rice and lentils and spices and onions and yogurt are delicious together.

I do a lot of vegetarian cooking and foresee that continuing, especially because the meat section was pretty picked over last time I went grocery shopping.

and I love to bake.

book-wise, I'm really into books with detailed cultural worldbuilding, and read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and YA, but I'm certainly willing to branch out.

Lyra here: Favourite de-stressing book is... Dammit, it's either Dune or the first half of Gone with the Wind or something YA-y. Best go-to meal to make, poached chicken with green onion and ginger sauce over a bed of chicken rice and with some sauteed bok choy. Most comforting. Maybe with a side of cocoa brownies or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Hello friends! I understand that the series gets a bad rap based on rabbid fandom, but the Horus Heresy series from Warhammer 40K is a good one to pick up.

Ophelia, sheltering in place in Southern California with my highly at risk mother and my younger sister (who does not normally live with me) plus five dogs. My go to “stop the world, I want to get off” read is the discworld series and lately I’ve been making a lot of pasta with kitchen sink sauce because noodles are cheap and easy to make.

Accented by cheese bread which burnt because I forgot it was in the oven

Mmm deeply caramelized cheese bread!

I'm Rox! I'm in grad school, so I might not have much time to read outside of that, but I love to cook and bake and I like chatting about it with people who also like those things, so I'll try to participate as much as I can.

JK here, my go to comfort books are anything by Terry Pratchett and I don’t cook nearly enough but am getting back into it now

ψ Jк Aѕunvαh ☀ : pratchett high five!

He’s the best in trying times

the particular brand of humour is just what's needed. also - hello, friend. /flops on

Hi, I'm Marti, a medical coding student and mother of 6. Now that all our schooling is online I'm trying to make sure to schedule time for reading and other activities into our day so we're not just on the computer all the time.

I also took this opportunity to remake an account I had run before, betterliving

It will be for sharing anything that you want to for getting healthier, including exercise and diet. But I want to make sure it's known it's not a weight-loss account. It's about any effort or change that makes your life better, no matter what category that falls into

As far as what we're reading, I started The Neverending Story with my 7yo twins, but I am not reading anything purely for myself at this time

We've started making our own bread out of necessity, but this is also a hobby I had when I was younger, so I'm enjoying being able to pass this on to my kids

unbearablylight: Hello fellow twin mom!

ᴇɢɢɴᴏɢ ɢᴏᴅᴅᴇꜱꜱ : Why hello!