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Quarantining For The Benefit of The Collective: The Selfless Message of Greg.

While the world has locked down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus has still spread at an exponential rate. Local student Gregory Filippov, who has high-risk parents, has been taking special precautions during these difficult times.

Greg’s parents are immunocompromised which puts them at a higher risk for catching and experiencing advanced symptoms from COVID-19. He has been forced to stay indoors and says that the only reason you should leave your house is for groceries. 

Greg has helped to stop the spread by washing his hands and wearing facemasks, and says that while the adjustment to digital classes and an abundance of leisure time is hard to deal with, distracting yourself with school work or TV is the best coping mechanism.

Greg and his family prepared for the lockdown, according to the SUNY Broome Student, by stocking up on non perishable food items, meats, and Gatorade as well as face masks. He also stresses the importance of always having a full tank of gas “just in case.”

He says that these precautions have come with a serious trade-off, that being the lack of motivation to do the online classwork and the disconnect that this new digital interface has. Greg has overcome this by making sure to force himself to do school work, not procrastinate, and not watch the news too much to stay out of a bad mood. 

The Student also knows family friends in New York City who have the virus and says that people who use the discounted travel prices to go to places like NYC are “selfish” and “not okay”, making it worse for everyone.  

Greg’s perseverance is a message to us all that if he can get through these hard times under his particular circumstances, so can we.

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KFC’s Fried Chicken Glazed Donut Sandwich is the Coup de Grâce in the Chicken Sandwich Wars

Last month KFC introduced their new glazed donut and fried chicken sandwich to a nationwide audience after successful test trials earlier this fall. 

The new menu item consists of a boneless fried chicken piece between two hot glazed donuts and is available for purchase between Monday, February 24th and Monday, March 16th (or until supplies last). 

While the nutrition of this sandwich was kept a secret when it was first released, KFC has since updated their website to advertise the calorie count as 1,100, well over half of the daily recommended calorie intake for adults. 

The sandwich was released alongside a chicken and donuts combo basket, mimicking the new combo that’s been catching on among both fried chicken restaurants and donut restaurants. A two donut and one donut basket are available for $8.99 and $5.99 respectively and comes with your choice of tenders or bone-in chicken. The sandwich and the sandwich combo sell for $5.99 and $7.99 respectively while a la carte donuts are available for just one dollar. 

The creation comes in the wake of a fierce chicken sandwich war sparked by the feud between rival southern-style chicken restaurants Popey’s and Chick-Fil-A, after the former released a new chicken sandwich that saw massive crowds at their restaurants who emptied the chain of their chicken sandwich stock in less than a week. They have since added the sandwich permanently to their menu alongside a spicy variant while other restaurants have introduced sandwiches in a similar style. Wendy’s introduced a chicken sandwich, in addition to their other chicken sandwiches, in the same style as Popeye’s, while McDonald’s is in a phase of test trials with a sandwich more similar to Chick-Fil-A’s. KFC, for this new sandwich, decided to ditch the brioche buns, dill pickle chips, and aioli mayo that define this viral genre of sandwiches for a more simplistic combo of heavily glazed warm donuts. 

Foodies, especially those with large followings on YouTube, have all gotten in on the action to critique, give praise, and eat this unique food sensation.

Review:

I had to get to the bottom of this story and decided the only way I could was to try the sandwich myself. I got both the combo and the sandwich and noticed immediately that the glaze was extremely heavy and the pastry was significantly thicker than a normal glazed donut from Dunkin or Krispy Kreme. They were hot and very moist with a rich yeasty and sugary flavor that complimented well with the KFC exclusive “Mountain Lightning” peach and honey flavored Mountain Dew. While the chicken was legendary as ever and the donuts were up there among the great circular pastries of other donut shops, their being combined in sandwich form seemed to make both taste not quite as amazing. However, there was nothing gross about the meal like I’d expected and it was definitely a worthy competitor against the Popeye’s and Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches of which I have tried both. The donuts could be healthier, and I think KFC should look into this if they want to reintroduce this special again. A Krispy Kreme donut has 200 calories while, according to Krispy Kreme, the average glazed yeast donut has around 260 calories. KFC’s donut, thick and dripping with glaze, racks up a startling 420 calories, about 2-1.5x higher than its competitors.