Winter hit early this year, with proper Puget Sound weather--it has been raining almost continuously all week--cold, and wet, and nasty, just like it should be.
Blech.
Ratbane likes it, because he can go outside and get soaking wet, and come back inside and get toweled off. Don't tell him tomcats shouldn't like being toweled off!
Sparrowbane prefers to dry off the natural way: In our laps.
It is a sad fact that, here in Rain City USA1, people forget how to drive in the rain during the month-and-a-half or so of dry weather we get every summer. We like to attribute it to all the Californians who move up here, fleeing the impending collapse (and bringing along all the silly attitudes and expectations that caused same), but the fact is, it is so widespread that it may be endemic. (OTOH, Mrs. Drang, who grew up here, does not seem to have a problem, so maybe not.)
Anyway. So I'm on my way to work the other day, and get behind the stereotypical Birkenstock wearer, poking along on the highly hazardous rainy Interstate at 50 MPH, in her "Smugmobile"2, with what I am pretty sure was a Communist Party USA bumper sticker. (Hint: What is dangerous is not the wet pavement, so much as the locals you are infuriating by holding up traffic.)
The day went downhill from there, culminating in my leaving work early due to headache, sore throat, and temperature spikes; I stayed home the next day, and am feeling fine. Or as fine as I do, what with having to remember which cat wants to be toweled off, which cat I have to change my clothes after he gets dried off, and the fact that I have to go back to work tomorrow.
Considering the weather, I made a batch of soup yesterday--Manischewitz' Vegetable Soup Mix (With Mushrooms!); don't tell Manischewitz, but I threw in a smoked ham hock (Ooooh! Tref!) that has been in the freezer for mumblety years. Let it simmer all afternoon, and the cats think Emeril is right; Pork Fat Rules! (They got very little meat, though. After simmering all afternoon, it did, in fact, pretty much fall off the bone.)
It bids to be cold and wet all winter, El Nino or not, so I may make up another batch, maybe a double one, and throw in some smoked sausage instead of ham hocks. Freeze it in single-serving sized packages. Maybe a large batch of chili, same deal. If we seal them in the vacuum sealer, all we need to do to heat them back up is to boil them in hot water, and if the power goes out, we will be able to do that over the camp stove.
Since it is usually very cold when we usually lose power for long periods around here, the thing to do would be to take anything frozen you are going to cook out of the freezer, and avoid opening the freezer again; leave the frozen stuff frozen. Put the items taken from the freezer in a cooler on the back porch for protection from wandering critters, and remove as needed.
Speaking of which, I may have mentioned two cook books I am fond of: Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out and The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity. Apocalypse Chow is primarily vegetarian, and The Storm Gourmet is mostly no-cook (and is written by of a Floridian who has all kinds of fruit trees to harvest from) but they are still good starters for someone looking for hints on cooking when the power goes out. Amazon lists several other books that look like they might be useful under those conditions as well.
***
1. Actually, Seattle gets less rain annually than Noo Yawk or DeeCee. We just get it all the time, instead of all at once.
2. Generic term for any hybrid, especially a Toyota Prius or Honda whatever.
No comments:
Post a Comment