Time In: The best things to do at home

One of the many stages of preparedness during a health crisis is loading up on food. You want to make sure your fridge and pantry are stocked with the essentials. In Miami, that means securing your stash of pastelitos. Fortunately, Cuban staple Vickys Bakery makes it so you don’t have to leave the house to get them: Their frozen variety packs of ready-to-bake guava, cheese and guava-and-cheese pastelitos can be delivered right to your door. Each box is $20 and includes a dozen pastries and the parchment paper you’ll need to bake them on, plus clear, printed instructions to lessen the chances of any potential screw-ups. Orders ship Monday through Thursday and arrive as quickly as one business day. Jump on this now to make sure you’re ready for Monday. We had a contributor give it a go and we’re told the results were glorious: 144 layers of buttery, flaky dough as fresh and fragrant as if you’d picked one up during your regular cafecito break. It left his whole house smelling like a Cuban bakery, which is probably the best air-freshener you can ask for if you’re working from home this week. Photograph: Gio Gutierrez        Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.

Right now most of our pantries look like the supermarket’s pasta aisle. Boxed macaroni and cheese? We’ve got dozens! Shells, strands, tubular—we stocked the dried stuff in all shapes in sizes. All of this is great and a delicious, long-term solution, but there will come a time when all you want is a perfectly al dente, toothsome bowl of carbs. That’s the moment you’ll call on Casa Tua Cucina.  The Italian food hall inside Brickell City Centre’s Saks Fifth Avenue just launched a curbside pick-up option to help you satisfy your cravings during this time of social distancing. Via this new service called Next Door, customers can order breakfast, lunch and dinner from Casa Tua’s 10 gourmet food stations. From wood-fired pizzas and grilled meats to fresh pasta with house-made sauces, you can order it on nextdoor.casatuacucina.com and have it walked out to your car at your designated time. Order from one station, several or all as you assemble your dream Italian meal from your phone. While delivery might still be an option, pick-up means you'll be eating your food faster. Think of it as a highly efficient drive-through service with almost no interaction with strangers—just how we like it these days.  Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.

The coronavirus pandemic is really striking down on bars and restaurants. These hardest-hit industries are also the ones we cover most. If we’re not telling you where to eat and where to drink, we’re sharing some kind of lunch special with you or telling you about the latest brunch you need to try. As many of these places move to delivery- and takeout-only models, meeting profit margins will be a challenge and, sadly, many employees will be out of a job. RECOMMENDED: Time In: The best things to do at home Fortunately, there’s something we can do to help our favorite eateries thrive while we practice social-distancing. Beyond ordering delivery, which we’ve outlined here, buying gift cards is a great way to support your go-to spots in the meantime. Even if they’re closed, buying ahead can help these businesses can continue to pay their bills and staff. When the public health crisis is under control, we’ll be ready to patronize our favorite establishments with a gift card in hand. If you have recommendations of spots we missed, please send them to hello-us@timeout.com. Bar Centro at SLS South Beach  bartaco Beaker & Gray Blackbrick Chinese Bodega Taqueria y Tequila Cafe Prima Pasta Caja Caliente  Casa Sensei Cracked by Chef Adrianne CWS Bar & Kitchen Diez y Seis El Vez Fi’lia Brickell Green Bar & Kitchen Hyde Beach at SLS South Beach Il Mulino New York Sunny Isles Jaguar Restaurant Juvia Katsuya Brickell  Katsuya South Beach Komodo Kush Le Zoo Leynia Makoto Mastro’s Fort Laude

As many city officials across the country order restaurants and bars to shutter to dine-in guests, local foodies are looking for new ways to support their favorite spots without actually leaving the house. There are plenty of ways to show up for restaurant and bar workers during this uncertain time—from stocking up on gift cards and ordering no-contact delivery to buying merch and writing a review. If you're able, here are five things you can do to ensure that your city's finest eateries and watering holes can weather the storm. And because all cities are operating under different guidelines and restrictions at the moment (and we know how fast those can change), please use your best judgment. Editor's note: We'll continue adding tips and guidance to this story over time. Stay tuned for more creative ways to show your support. 1. Order delivery or curbside pickup When you tire of peanut butter sandwiches and granola bars, shake things up by ordering in from your usual haunts. National services like DoorDash, Grubhub and Caviar offer no-contact delivery so that drivers can leave your feast in a safe place, like a lobby or doorstep. Restauranteurs and bar owners are getting creative, too, like this Los Angeles bar that's delivering cocktail kits, toilet paper and wagyu burgers. Follow your city guidelines for ordering takeout service, and for the love of humanity, tip generously.  2. Stock up on gift cards Many restaurant owners throughout the country are pointing to gift card

Like a lot of things these days, it all started on a group chat. Karla Croqueta, the beloved Miami drag queen whose flamboyant, bearded looks and energetic performances have earned her jobs all around the city—not to mention the title of the Ultimate Miami Drag Queen 2019—began seeing her gigs disappear one by one. “We were kind of on edge because we’ve never canceled a Counter Corner before,” says Josue Garcia (Croqueta out of drag), who helps organize the influential, all-inclusive monthly queer party going strong in Downtown for nearly six years. With innumerable Miami events and businesses shutting down in the wake of coronavirus, including Miami Beach Pride, carrying on with Sunday’s scheduled party at the Corner became unfeasible. “The owner of the bar called and we were all in agreement that it’s important to practice social distancing and help protect the community,” Garcia says. Amid a flurry of concerned back-and-forth messaging with friends over how to cope with the loss of the party, Garcia declared a solution: “We need to go live.” The group chat response was swift and enthusiastic. “It was kind of a joke,” Garcia says. “But everyone said, ‘Perfect. Let’s go live at 9pm.’” A few hours later, the hashtag #DigitalDragShow was born, and with it the first-ever live-streamed Counter Corner. With the assistance of partners Sleeper Speaks and Johnnyonthego, Croqueta launched the Instagram Live stream from home this past Sunday night, serving up fierce performances from

If there’s one thing this week of social-distancing has taught us is that we didn’t visit Miami’s cultural institutions enough. Right now, we miss the days we almost went to PAMM, or drove by the Bass but wound up at Sweet Liberty instead. We’re lucky museums aren’t sentient otherwise they’d never forgive us and wouldn’t give us gifts like free virtual tours to keep us entertained during our time of need. Yep, starting this week, you can walk through the hallowed halls of some of the city’s top venues. Ready to explore? Just follow the links below.   Institute of Contemporary Art The Design District museum has always been free and it’s always put its best content online, we were just too busy to notice. Browse through a treasure trove of digital media, dating back to its very first exhibition when ICA opened five years ago. There’s behind-the-scenes footage, performance recordings and audio files that take you inside years of curating and collating. A must-see according to artistic director Alex Gartenfeld: new videos following Guadalupe Maravilla’s project, which show the artist engaging with the complex issues and identities of immigrants in the US. Watch here.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by ICA Miami (@icamiami) on Mar 5, 2020 at 3:16pm PST The Bass  The South Beach museum parties on, taking its beloved workshops and current exhibitions online with virtual tours and classes. Parents, peep the Bass’ online Art Camp From Home online hat launche

“Everything we do is meant to highlight some interior aspect of Miami and what it is,” says P. Scott Cunningham, founder and director of O, Miami, a nonprofit that celebrates our town through the lens of poetry. That’s the whole idea behind the name: “It’s a love letter to the city,” says Cunningham. The annual poetry festival, which began in 2011, sprinkles the magic of the written word around the city like fairy dust all month long in the form of highly inventive art installations, readings and workshops. The goal of O, Miami is for every single person in Miami-Dade County to encounter a poem in April. “But what I’ve learned is that there’s already poetry out there,” Cunningham says. “The city is so poetic and people are engaged in more ways than I ever anticipated.” In an effort to keep the spirit of poetry alive while we carry on with life in lockdown, the O, Miami team has reconfigured its April programming to live mostly online. Below is a sampling of what Miamians can expect throughout the month of April. For updates and information on how to participate in O, Miami Online 2020, follow @omiamifestival or visit omiami.com. Illustration: Courtesy O, Miami Poetry Festival Poetry fruit stickers O, Miami partnered with local farmers’ markets Urban Oasis Project and Little River Co-op to place poetry stickers on fresh fruits and veggies. The short ‘n’ sweet poems were by penned by elementary and middle school children participating in O, Miami’s Sun Room poetry project in

Following the recommendations of the CDC and City of Miami Beach, the New World Center has extended its public closure through the end of May and the resident New World Symphony has canceled the remaining concerts of its 2019–2020 season.  In an effort to quell the quarantine blues, New World Symphony will make its vast stores archival content available online free of charge as well as curate a series of online performances and discussions. Among the upcoming digital program highlights will be the NWS Archive+ series (launching the week of March 22), which will feature recordings from the New World Symphony archive plus new commentary and behind-the-scenes insights from artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas, NWS fellows, alumni, guest artists and visiting faculty.   “We hope that our online musical offerings will foster communal transformations in our individual settings,” New World Symphony president Howard Herring said in a statement. From this season’s opening Berlioz program to the Viola Visions Festival, the Stravinsky collaboration with Miami City Ballet and Schumann Symphony No. 3, “We’ve been in top form,” Tilson Thomas said in the announcement. “I wish that all our fellows, staff and supporters be safe and productive during these uncertain times.” Check out all the other ways you can enjoy the symphony from home below:  New World Symphony Fellows: Live from our Living Room Beginning Friday, March 20 at 7 pm, New World Symphony fellows will play live, informal chamb

The Metropolitan Opera is providing some "grand opera solace" this week while everyone is stuck at home due to the city and state's mandated coronavirus closures. The Met will stream encore presentations from the award-winning Live in HD series for the duration of its closure, starting Monday, March 16. Each stream, which can be found at metopera.org for free, will begin at 7:30pm and will stay up for 20 hours. "We’d like to provide some grand opera solace to opera lovers in these extraordinarily difficult times," said Met General Manager Peter Gelb. "Every night, we’ll be offering a different complete operatic gem from our collection of HD presentations from the past 14 years." Here's the schedule this week: Monday, March 16 – Bizet’s Carmen Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, starring Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna. Transmitted live on January 16, 2010. Tuesday, March 17 – Puccini’s La Bohème Conducted by Nicola Luisotti, starring Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas. Transmitted live on April 5, 2008. Wednesday, March 18 – Verdi’s Il Trovatore Conducted by Marco Armiliato, starring Anna Netrebko, Dolora Zajick, Yonghoon Lee, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Transmitted live on October 3, 2015. Thursday, March 19 – Verdi’s La Traviata Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, starring Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Flórez, and Quinn Kelsey. Transmitted live on December 15, 2018. Friday, March 20 – Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment Conducted by Marco Armiliato, starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Die

The world is pretty much on lockdown given coronavirus, but there’s one advantage we have compared to pandemics of the past: The internet, which offers plenty of distractions while sheltering in place. And while you could spend a lot of that time streaming or navigating social media, you might want to consider using the opportunity to up your cultural game—by virtually touring a museum. A lot of major museums offer options for seeing works in their collection online, especially in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, which provides one stop access to the world's greatest masterpieces. Additionally, some museums have their own portals offering digital admission to the treasures therein—all for free. To see what we mean, check out recommendations for the best online museum experiences in the United States. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Covering 5,000 years of art history, The Met has 200,770 objects online. Their offerings on Google include experiences like "A New Look At Vermeer." The Met's home site offers features on current shows, like their major retrospective of the German painter Gerhard Richter and street view tours of key attractions like The Temple Of Dendur. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City Grouped into categories such as contemporary art, Modern Art and Cubism, the 129 artworks from MoMA’s collection featured on Google include some of its most famous holdings—Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, Paul Cézanne's Still Life with Apples, Hen

In this age of planes and automobiles, trains are a wildly atmospheric throwback to the leisurely travel of times past. For an afternoon excursion, a weekend getaway or a longer journey, embark on one of these breathtakingly scenic train rides, which hug dreamy coastlines, snake across wildflower-carpeted mountainsides and skip along rushing rivers.

The natural beauty of America is legendary, which makes our pick of the best places to visit in the USA an essential collection of hot spots to add to your 2020 travel bucket list. On this list you'll find some of the best cities in America, gorgeous national parks in places as faraway as Alaska and Hawaii and even some awe-inspiring craters, crevices and other natural wonders. So consider this your guide to the beautiful ol' US of A—from sea to shining sea.  RECOMMENDED: The best places to travel in 2020