Monday, September 15, 2008

Hurricane Cooking

I live in Houston, and for those who pay attention to the news may have noticed that a big ol' hurricane rolled through here Friday night. I was watching Prison Break on my DVR and missed the end of the episode when the lights went out. Bummer.

One gift Ike gave my family was a power outage. We were still out Sunday night. Fortunately, I've got a propane grill and a smoker, and for hurricane prep, I bought a big bag of charcoal. I happened to have a freezer full of meat, so I got to smoking. I smoked chicken Saturday, chicken and pork roast Sunday. Now, I think it's too late to smoke anything else, as the food's going to start spoiling.

I went to check on my Dad Sunday morning, and he had his two Coleman camp stoves out on the patio, and had just finished a breakfast of scrambled eggs with peppers, mushrooms, and onions, and a pot of coffee. So I didn't feel too bad for him. We're all weathering this ok.

Now it's going to get boring - rice and beans and pasta is what I've got in the pantry. I try to remember to keep pretty well stocked on dried goods during the hurricane season, so I'm not one of those desparate people running to the store at the last minute. I went Monday night, just in case, and just bought a bag of charcoal and a couple of bottles of pasta sauce. Thursday afternoon, I dropped by the liquor store, and the place was packed! Everybody was buying beer by the case, two liter bottles of vodka, you name it. Hey, if you're gonna ride the storm out, you may as well have something to do!