So Many Dishes

If I have learned anything from living in South Florida for over 40 years, it’s how to wait for a hurricane. I can’t honestly say that it’s a lesson I’ve enjoyed.

There is a lot that goes into hurricane preparation, but something that has to be considered is food. We actually begin thinking about hurricane food at the beginning of each storm season. In addition to making sure we have a supply of bottled water and non perishable food, we try to make sure that we work our way through the food in the freezer, so that we won’t lose too much if the power goes out.

We’re fortunate that we’re not in the direct path of Milton. We’re under a tropical storm warning, and there have been tornado warnings today, but this should mostly be rain for us. So I haven’t gone into full hurricane-cooking mode.

When we’ve had storms approaching in the past, I try to cook as much of the food in the house as possible: hard-boiled eggs, meatloaf with any ground meat, poached chicken breasts. If we have hot dogs or sausages in the freezer, I’ll try to keep them on ice to cook on the grill after the storm. We’ll eat up any ice cream and drink the milk.

Our cooking plans this time have been different. We thought that our son and his family were going to evacuate to our house from their home in the northern suburbs of Orlando. When the storm track shifted slightly south, they decided to ride it out.

We’ve made the assumption that we won’t have a power outage and planned meals assuming that our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter will be here. But since they didn’t come today, we’ve done some menu shuffling. I postponed making “Nana’s noodles,” our granddaughter’s name for my pasta puttanesca, until they get here in need of hot showers and cold beverages. We’ll kind of play things by ear over the next few days.

I hope that, wherever you are, you stay safe and dry, and have an enjoyable meal!