I made it through the hurricane, just like everyone else but, I think, far better than everyone else. I didn't lose power, didn't have damage, and stayed in town with friends. I know that my day will come!
Even though I escaped damage and inconvenience (I'm getting more scared of paybacks by the minute) I did play a small role for friends. They stayed at my house one night when their power went out and I cooked a few meals for them and a couple others who had lost power or wanted company or both. The following is the worst of my hurricane kitchen endeavors.
So many around me were camping out with friends, driving distances to inland Georgia, staying in odd circumstances, etc., I felt kind of bad being too comfortable -- and didn't want to be out-adventured. Thus I decided to use the small hibachi grill that I'd been ignoring on my porch to grill up the thawing packages of frozen fish in my refrigerator (inherited among many other refrigerated and frozen items from friends without power). I'm not a foodie, but I am a food snob. I don't buy frozen fish. I go to the local, incredible fish market, Russo's. Thus, the Kroger packages of Talapia and tuna were foreign to me, but, again, adventure. I marinated as my sister suggested and my friends took over just as I was on page six of the grill instructions and getting frustrated. They're master grillers (a la Green Egg) and I felt things were going well. We had drinks. Thankfully I had the good sense to make one "sure" thing, brown rice with chicken broth. I also made a salad out of a head of iceberg lettuce that didn't seem to go away, no matter how much I used it.
To me the fish tasted like lighter fluid that had gone bad. (Yes, my friends used lighter fluid when the grill instructions warned against it, pa. 6). "Is it supposed to taste like this?" I asked, amazed that they were eating everything on their plates. I tried to find all the rice on mine and didn't bring it up again. The next day we all reported in that we had stomach issues. I think that the fish had been in one too many freezers, then refrigerators over the course of the power outages.
Since then I've cleaned the grill -- another step in my recent quest to face the unknown or at least do something new each day. Maybe that is my personal, leftover effect from going just a little bit outside of my comfort zone during the Hurricane. I'm hoping!
