The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

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Advice to Help Everyone Stay Safe From Covid Infection through this Year’s Thanksgiving Gathering

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Recommendations from the Westchester County Executive to stay safe and still enjoy the holiday together. 

Here is the food and home safety advisory shared by Westchester County Executive George Latimer who encourages residents to keep their Thanksgiving celebrations small and as safe as possible this year and to follow the Health Department’s tips for a healthier holiday.

Latimer said: “This is the year to make your Thanksgiving gathering more intimate, and to cherish your immediate family members and traditions. Consider setting time for a virtual visit with distant relatives and friends. If you do invite others to your holiday table, spend some time outdoors and keep the windows open when you’re inside.”

Health Commissioner Sherlita Amler, MD, offered some extra advice to reduce Covid-19 exposure:

  • Open the windows — the wider the better and as many as possible — to promote cross-ventilation.
  • Run your kitchen exhaust fan.
  • Keep guests out of the kitchen.
  • Wash or sanitize hands frequently.
  • Have your guests wear a mask unless they are eating or drinking.
  • Avoid passing platters from person to person.
  • Designate one person with gloved hands to serve buffet style from a central location.
  • Consider making side dishes in single-serve ramekins and using single service plates and utensils.
  • Ask your guests to reduce their contacts and potential exposures for the two weeks prior to their visit.
  • Remind your guests to stay home if they have any COVID symptoms or a fever, are awaiting COVID test results, or are under quarantine or isolation orders.
  • Have your returning college student limit his or her exposure to others and get tested this week, next week and a day or two before returning home, wear a mask throughout their travel home when around others, whether by plane, train or car, with windows open.
  • Invite your guests to wear masks and meet you for a walk, a turkey trot or a hike in a park.

Amler said: “It is especially important to keep uninvited germs out of your holiday meal, so wash your hands thoroughly when you arrive and before you take that first bite. Good hand hygiene can help reduce the risk of flu, Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses.”

Restaurants have taken steps to increase safety, but outdoor dining remains preferable to indoors. When dining out, if you do not see a permit, contact the Health Department to assure the restaurant complies with State and County sanitary codes.

At home, when you remove your fresh or defrosted turkey from the refrigerator, do not wash it — this spreads pathogens onto kitchen surfaces. Fully cook the turkey to kill bacteria that causes foodborne illness. The Health Department recommends holiday hosts and their helpers follow these 10 food safety tips:

  • Wash hands and food-contact surfaces with hot water and soap thoroughly and often.
  • Thaw turkey in a pan in the refrigerator, allowing 24 hours for every 5 pounds.
  • Keep raw meat, poultry and their juices away from ready-to-eat foods.
  • Use separate cutting boards, plates and utensils when handling raw turkey to avoid cross-contamination.
  • Wash items that have touched raw meat with hot water and soap, or place them in a dishwasher.
  • Rinse all fruits and vegetables in cool running water and remove surface dirt.
  • Cook turkey and stuffing to 165°F, as measured by a food thermometer. Check the turkey’s temperature by inserting the thermometer in three places: the thickest part of the breast, the innermost part of the thigh and the innermost part of the wing.
  • When preparing the meal, cut down on the amount of fat and sugar in recipes and boost flavor with fresh herbs instead of salt.
  • Refrigerate turkey, stuffing and sides within two hours.
  • Reheat leftovers to at least at least 165°F before serving. (Check the temperature with a metal probe thermometer.)

 

For more food preparation safety tips, go to www.westchestergov.com/health. SDA Meat & Poultry Hotline: 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) USDA-FSIS: Chat live with a food safety specialist in English or Spanish at AskKaren.gov (En Español), 10 a.m.–6 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. Web-based automated response system available 24/7.

News courtesy of the Westchester County Executive

A Search for Joy in ‘Something New’

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Contemplating the Holidays Without My Extended Family

One of my brothers-in-law recently noted that the lack of family gatherings over the last seven months has thrown off his internal calendar. We have a large extended family–and it’s the celebrations and gatherings with those relatives that help mark the passage of time and distinguish one week, one month, one season from another.

If ever there was a time that we could benefit from the rhythm and joy of family gatherings, it’s now. And yet, if ever there was a time that we could benefit from staying away from each other, it’s now.

In past years: The author’s extended family at Christmas

So, what to do with the holidays? In normal years, we would host anywhere from 20 to 30-something on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Our mid-century modern house isn’t huge, but its open floor plan allows everyone to be together in the same space whether cooking or engrossed in conversation. On Thanksgiving, we drag extra tables and chairs up from the garage, and each individual family contributes dishes and their labor to the effort. On Christmas, the base of the tree is smothered in gifts we exchange through Secret Santa and a hilarious Yankee Swap. I love watching the cousins of my children’s generation curl up together on our wraparound sofa like one long genetic sequence.

We are lucky: there is no embarrassing drunk uncle disrupting dinner. I am lucky: I never feel burdened by the toll of the work because there are so many hands offering help. If it sounds nauseatingly civilized, I suppose it is. I embrace the winter holidays with a passion that would provoke eye rolling among cynics, an association to which I belong the other ten months of the year.

This year with the pandemic still raging and travel fraught with peril, some of our family members are spread far enough away that they might as well live on another planet. My daughter, who just graduated from college in May, will be spending Thanksgiving in Alaska where she currently lives, returning for a week or two at Christmas. My son, a sophomore in college, is not allowed to come home for Thanksgiving unless he stays here through Christmas and winter break. So, we will be empty nesters for the first time ever at Thanksgiving. My sister recently moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to be with her daughter. I have two sisters-in-law who, with their families, live flights away, one in Europe. They haven’t seen any of their siblings (there are seven) or their ninety-three-year-old dad in nearly a year.

We’ve had a few conversations about the possibility of mini gatherings of six-ten. We’ve also considered the question, could Thanksgiving be held outdoors? We bought a restaurant-grade deck heater that could warm a handful of guests. But what if it rains or snows? We’re fortunate that our kids will be able to return home for Christmas. But because one will have been on a plane, the other on campus, we will likely stay clear of our extended family in December.

None of this is tragic of course–we are healthy, for now. More intimate versions of yearly traditions are hardly a disaster. The upside: a reasonable size turkey, one less tray of stuffing and more in-depth conversation.

I’ve noticed that my family and friends are careful not to complain too much about their pandemic malaise, acutely aware of the kind of emotional, physical and economic suffering that plagues so much of the country. There is guilt attached to wallowing when others have it worse. But perhaps one holiday gift we can give ourselves and those in our orbit is the freedom to acknowledge how much this has impacted us–changed us–left us without many simple joys, like connecting over a turkey and stuffing, around a tree, or to light candles.

As anyone who has had a birthday in this pandemic season understands, our celebrations this holiday season will be different–or at least they should be. And while they will be stunted, we may find in them something new, and some familiar comfort in their rhythms and joy.

Beecher Flooks Funeral Home Owner Discusses the Impact of COVID-19

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March 27, 2020, Pleasantville, NY– “No time is a good time to die,” said Bill Flooks, owner of Pleasantville’s  Beecher Flooks Funeral Home which he has run for the last 16 years with his son Billy, Jr. “But this is not a good time at all.”

Flooks took some time out to speak with the Inside Press about the mandate to control coronavirus from spreading which limits public gatherings to ten people who must also follow social distancing rules. He commented that he and his staff are witnessing the impact among newly grieving individuals.

There are clear stages in the grieving process, Flooks explained, and they are disrupted by the new rules. “Individuals may feel they didn’t get what they wanted from the service. They are rescheduling a memorial service for a later date. He spoke of how “a wound may be reopened” to have the memorial service later, but that “many people may still wish to hold one for closure.”

With all houses of worship closed, there are mostly graveside services in which a family arranges for their own clergy to officiate at the cemetery. “Some of the cemeteries are even limiting the number of people who can come to the gravesite, even though it is outside.” Flooks added that he works with each cemetery service and will honor their rules and regulations.

He described it as “especially difficult when you have an elderly mother or father in a nursing home facility… You may not have seen them for weeks because the nursing home is on lockdown, and now they are dead. It is very upsetting.”

To date, Flooks said Beecher has held two funerals for persons with COVID-19 related deaths. “We are taking all the necessary precautions,” he said.

“First and foremost, we are helping families,” he added. “We are also being smart and careful. We have plenty of disinfectant; if we do have a gathering, we will bring in a cleaning service after the service to sanitize the building so we can keep the exposure to a minimum in case someone did have it.”

Flooks said that he and his son and his family are healthy and taking every precaution to stay so, too, and are continuing to meet the needs of those facing loss.  “It’s always a challenge, always a trying time, to help people navigate through a difficult life stage and the loss of a loved one, but with COVID-19, it’s even more difficult because of all the restrictions individuals face. But we are patient. We walk them through it and give the best guidance we can.”