Róisín Ingle: Social distancing, the 2m kind, is so 2020

Get a load of good cherry tomatoes. The fancy ones on the vine if you can. But if not, the other ones will be absolutely grand.

My friend wants to meet for coffee. But she doesn’t want to talk about The Thing. I’m of the same mind. So instead we talk about what we were having for dinner these days. She’s into artichokes. Which after one unfortunate incident a few years ago I christened fartichokes. She thinks that if she cooked them for me, whole, with butter, I’d change my mind. But I don’t think so. The memory of that night and the morning after is too raw.

Put the cherry tomatoes in a large oven-proof dish and sprinkle them with 1tsp of oregano and another of chilli flakes. Add four whole cloves of garlic, skin off. Drizzle with oil, add salt and pepper and stir about.

It’s hard not to talk about The Thing. Although looking around on a sunny, chilly day in Dublin you could be forgiven for thinking all is normal. Grand Canal Square is jammers with people drinking coffee and eating takeaway French toast. There are noisy groups cracking open cans on the canal.

This Level 5 looks very different from the original, hardcore Level 5. We’re not as scared anymore, is what it looks like. Social distancing, the 2 metre kind, is so 2020. If it weren’t for the face masks, you’d hardly know. A year “living with” a virus will do that to you.

Get a block of feta cheese. Put it in the middle of the tomatoes, like it’s a small boat sailing in a vast red sea. Season the feta, then drizzle it with olive oil. Put the dish in a fan oven at 200 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Let’s talk about embarrassing moments instead, my friend says. Okay, I say, but I only have an hour. I tell her my best, worst one where I accidentally went to a wedding that I hadn’t been invited to and realised days later that I’d only actually been invited to the afters.

My friend has some good ones about sending text messages to the person the text message is about, but she can’t beat me being a wedding crasher. She tries hard though. She tells me about a recent work text from a male client to which she replied “no problem” but it was autocorrected to “no panties”.

We are on a low wall by the canal, doubled over laughing so loudly we startle some middle-aged canal bank can crackers. It feels good to laugh. It feels good to talk about something else other than The Thing.

While your tomatoes and feta are in the oven, make a packet of pasta. Any shape you like but not a long one like spaghetti, tagliatelle or linguine. I’ve been experimenting with circular ruote pasta. Ruote or rotelle means “little wheels” in Italian. It has the added advantage of letting you say things like “this pasta is wheely good” and thereby annoying any small people in your life who are still not back at school yet and who are driving you up every single available wall in the house.

I have another friend who because she wants to be part of the solution, is eating, sleeping and drinking the science behind The Thing. I ask her what she thinks about sending the children back to school next week and she says she’s worried about the inevitable increase in community transmission from the schools reopening.

She points to new data that suggests one in seven children who get the virus will get long Covid. She says there is not enough being done to ensure safety in schools, like mechanical fans in classrooms and mandatory face masks. I'll be sending them back anyway. I think. Yes.

I think I will be sending them back.

When your wheels, bowties or spirals are cooked, reserve a little of the pasta water and then drain. When the timer goes on your oven, your tomatoes will be fit to burst and the feta will be a melty cloud. Take them out of the oven. Smush the garlic cloves with a fork, and gently press down the tomatoes too, careful to avoid the hot, squirty tomato juice. Add your pasta, combining everything together with a little of the pasta water. The best kind of hot mess.

I have to go home now, I tell my friend. To cook the dinner. Again. What are you making, she asks. And I tell her that I am very late to this party but I’m making the TikTok pasta dish that went viral a while back. I mean, you’d think something that went viral like that on TikTok of all places wouldn’t be any good but it’s actually delicious, fresh and so easy to make. She asks me to tell her how to make it. And I tell her each step like I am passing on the Ten Commandments.

Chop up some fresh basil, grate a little Parmesan cheese. Throw it all over the hot mess.

That’s how you meet your friend and don’t talk about The Thing. When I get home, one of my daughters has made the TikTok pasta by herself so all I have to do is eat it. I feel bad for saying they are driving me up the wall. And I am wheely grateful.

Serve. Eat. Enjoy. Forget.

roisin@irishtimes.com