Having sheltered in place, snuggled down nice and warm over this past weekend, and now working from home due to #Snowpocalypse2021, I have begun a search for virtual events to distract me from cabin fever. The internet — and Central Market — did not disappoint.
In celebration of Black History Month, Texas-based H.E.B.’s Central Market with locations in Fort Worth (4651 Wes Fwy, 817-989-4700) and Southlake (1425 E Southlake Blvd, 817-310-5600) is hosting two upcoming Virtual Cooking School Classes featuring recipes from African American chefs.
On Fri, Feb 19 at 6pm, Chef Marcus Samuelson will be cooking a Sunday roast chicken with chickpeas and couscous from his new book The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food. Then, on Thu, Feb 25 at 6:30pm, Chef Tiffany Derry — co-founder of Dallas restaurant Private/Social and season 7 favorite on Bravo’s Top Chef — will be cooking crispy chicken with roasted garlic-lemon sauce, herbed potatoes, and dressed arugula salad. Registration for each digital class is $10 at CentralMarket.com/CookingSchool. Ingredient kits may be purchased for $70-100 online, with pickup available at the Fort Worth location only.
Central Market also has a variety of soups and stews prepared inhouse and ready for reheating in the Cold Weather Comfort section, including baked potato soup, beef barley soup, chicken-sausage-seafood gumbo, chili on carni, poblano corn chowder, cream of mushroom soup, roasted tomato bisque, tortilla soup, vegetarian lentil soup, and two varieties of chicken soup — rustic chicken noodle soup and green chili chicken soup — for $5.99 for 16 ounces. (So there’s your appetizer.) Order at CentralMarket.com for curbside pickup or delivery.
Virtual events of the non-food sort are also a plenty this month. Here are some of my favorites so far.
On Wed, Feb 17, from 5pm to 8pm, shop online at Kendra Scott Southlake (Facebook.com/KendraScottSouthlakeTownSquare) with proceeds benefiting Salvaged Souls Pet Rescue, a North Texas web-based animal nonprofit organization (SalvagedSoulsPetRescue.org).
In Dallas, Latino Cultural Center is hosting a free online event called Storytelling with Bianca Reyna, a folk artist/poet, on Wed, Feb 24 at 2pm at LCC.DallasCulture.org. Reyna will be recounting ancestral myths, folktales, and legends of the Meso-American culture thru dance, music, and spoken word.
Attend a Virtual Tarot Reading on Sat, Feb 27 at 5:30pm, or take an Intro to Crystal Skulls virtual class on Sun, Feb 28 at 3:30pm at Arlington based Hearth Wisdom Store (US02Web.Zzoom.us). Both events are free to attend.
In short, hunker down and stay in. Check the events tab on Facebook for virtual happenings around the world. Check your friends’ band pages for live streaming shows — old or new — and tip them via Venmo or whatever, for Pete’s sake. And please check on your weirdo friend for drunken antics on Facebook Live. That boy ain’t right.
