FERN

I think about cooking differently now...

Cooking without power. No Heat. No Lights. Cold as shit outside, nearly as cold inside. Almost forgot you can still boil water on a gas stove, only after I tried the electric kettle, duh. Cooking became a way to stay warm, if only while my eggs were scrambling.

I had put my sourdough starter in the fridge before FERN, but without power, I brought it out, fed it, and used the discard to make some sandwich bread, then some focaccia. Best batches ever. Or at least it seemed like they were, as I toasted slices in my skillet before cooking my anytime omelet.

I have been in storms before. Nor’easters, Bomb Cyclones, Atmospheric Rivers, Tornadoes, and even Hurricanes. Those are expertly predicted well ahead of impact for the most part, well, maybe not Tornadoes. I was prepared. I had two 5-gallon Cambro buckets filled with fresh water. The headlamp and flashlight were working, and I had backup batteries on hand.

So slow-roasting a couple of fillets of wild Salmon and searing off two ribeye steaks made sense going into the ice storm, where losing electricity was inevitable. They came in handy for the next 48 hours after FERN hit around 2 am that Sunday morning. Somehow, I ate steamed rice and smothered kale with turkey bacon (it was in the freezer) and fell asleep before midnight.

I’m not certain what woke me up first. It could have been the freezing rain that was pelting the roof and windows. Or maybe it was the rumble of the wind against the frozen hedges outside the bedroom window. And don’t forget the Snow Lighting and subsequent Thunder. But it was probably the never-ending sounds of the frightening crack of the trees as they seemingly exploded under the tremendous weight of ice, followed by the sudden, abrupt crash of falling tree limbs colliding with the earth all around. Well, whatever it was, I didn’t sleep again for hours

.

When daylight finally woke me, it was to the continuous din of cracking branches and ground-shaking thuds. not the beeping of my iPhone alarm. My cat, Owen, who would normally have already come and gotten me out of bed so I could fill his bowl with special kibble, a spoonful of canned food, and a chicken-flavored pill popper with his Feline Lasix hidden inside, was nowhere to be found.

So I had myself an untoasted Maple and Brown Sugar Poptart and finally looked outside. The slap of cold warned me to the unimaginable winter wonderland of destruction and ice capade of frozen chaos. No movement other than random falling limbs out of the corner of my eye and the flashing flight of redbirds frantically flying around the shrubs that held their homes just hours earlier. It was calm and scary. And Owen was right to stay in hiding

.

By Monday afternoon, our friends and neighbors had sent out an SOS…come have a bowl of chili and sit in front of our gas fireplace. I showed up overly layered with a bag of tortilla chips and my headlamp. Others arrived with this and that from their still-chilled refrigerators, along with an assortment of sodas and beers. The chili was delicious, and camaraderie was even better. It reminded me of a small-scale version of the De-vacuation Parties we hosted at The Savvy Gourmet back in the fall of 2005, post-Katrina.

Everyone had been cold to the bone for the past 24-36 hours, and the collective body heat made us all warm to the thought of sharing our predicament. And then just as suddenly as it was gone, the brightness of the street lamp shone through the front window, the hum of the furnace cranking up, and the light of the stove flicked on - We had power!

I looked out their back door and saw the bathroom light, always on, shining through the downed trees in my backyard. Our headlamps were switched off as we all hugged and quickly finished our chili, then scurried off to check on our houses. The sudden relief we all felt as this portion of FERN could be over was emotional and hopeful. I had a tear well up as I nervously smiled and thanked our hosts, before slip-sliding the 1/2 block back to our house.

As we soon discovered, not all of us returned to the same results. Intermittent electricity, low water pressure or none at all, and the uncertainty of what could still fall from the sky were on all of our minds as we began the week. I offered to do what I do and opened my warm, well-lit table to those who could make it. It would be a dinner made from what I had in the pantry and what was still frozen in the outside freezer. Cincinnati Chili, 5-way option, was eaten and enjoyed by all, and no one really wanted to leave when it was gone. It made me happy and useful to play a small part in something we were all sharing, but that was bigger than any one of us.