Yeah, the hurricane came and she did some real work on us here in Virginia. We were lucky that we only lost power for 24 hours and our street didn't lose any trees. However, the streets behind and beside us still have huge 85 yrs old oak trees blocking the road. And since much of the city, as well as others up the East Coast, is still without power I thought I'd post my thoughts about what to do with the stuff in your fridge that is about to go bad.
First of all, this will be much easier if you or someone in your neighborhood has a gas stove. Really. Then you just start cooking or buddy up and begin bartering with your neighbors. If you don't know them already this will give you a great way to get up to speed really quickly, especially if you bring coffee or wine or bacon.
Speaking of bacon you'll need to cook that first because it's not going to last. Neither are your eggs. Your cheese is going to stay good for a while but if you're going to cook the bacon and eggs you might as well make an omelet:) Double check your fridge for anything else that is raw or a leftover that needs to be eaten and put it into the early rotation. We were lucky and this was the sum total of the raw ingredients in the fridge. If you have more eggs than can be eaten right away [like us, I'd just bought 2 dozen for some birthday baking] some can be hard-boiled and they'll keep better and be easier to eat that way.
This is a good time for the kidlets to remember it's not the time to get picky about meals. They want a certain item [for example] with their crackers and fruit. Tough. It doesn't exist. Milk might exist in the first day when it has to get drunk by all before it goes bad but after that it's gone. Comfort doesn't like peanut butter but I tell ya, if the power outage had lasted much longer she might've reconsidered as there is tons of it in this house and she saw everyone else begin to enjoy it so much while she ate plain crackers.
I know there are many more lessons that others can relate. Mostly we were lucky. We cooked dinner on our camping stove, cleaned up, put the kidlets to bed and then the power came back on. If we'd gone on another day we'd have done the same until the propane ran out and the stuff would've stayed cold in our cooler for a day or two. We do what we need to do and we hope it won't last long before our normal lives return. For everyone whose lives have been impacted by the storm, I hope it will return to normal for you shortly. In the meantime, have some virtual bacon and eggs with me. I'll be thinking of you.
2 months ago
