String Cheese- Article Fifteen

Desperate times call for desperate recipes

BY ARYN CORLEY

As I view the photographs of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike, I’m reminded of my kids’ rooms. The chaos and disorder of both can be overwhelming. Luckily, we didn’t suffer any damage and nobody was seriously injured. Thankfully, many of my friends came out of this storm with only a few trees down.

As with all natural disasters, there’s the time afterward when we scratch our heads and say to ourselves, “Now what?”

The hurricane damage in Southeast Texas ruined many planned events like Brad Paisley’s concert and the Texans football game. You know things are bad when the NFL has to reschedule a game. The Lord himself could come back to take us home right at halftime during the Super Bowl, and the NFL will ask him to kindly wait until the end of the game. That’s after checking to see if he’d bought a ticket.

However, East Texans weren’t going to let a little wind damage and power outage put a damper on doing what East Texans seem to do best: drinking and grilling.

The silver lining to this dark cloud is that we love food and whether it’s a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or flash flood, we’re going to “get our grub on.”

In the moments leading up to the storm, I saw hundreds of people scrambling around making preparations. I consistently saw the same things in the shopping carts as they rolled by: hot dogs, buns, chips and beer. It looked like people were getting prepared for an Astros game than a hurricane.

Liquor store parking lots looked like airports as scores of people were clamoring about to get in and out.

When the lights went out, the fires started. Across the county, the smell of lighter fluid wafted from one end to the other. After all, there was a fresh supply of smoking wood laying all over the place. For the next several days, barbecuing broke out instead of riots and hysteria.

It was pure heaven.

Everywhere I turned, someone was either sticking a rib in my mouth or stuffing a piece of grilled chicken in my shirt pocket.

People started cooking the meat from their freezers in order to prevent it from going to waste. Filet mignons that had been reserved for a special occasion had now become casualties of the storm. Where there’s barbecue, the beer is soon to flow.

At the POD (or point of distribution, as it was called), where I was working to hand out water and MREs, we were also doling out bags of ice like they were melting. Well, they were actually. As car after car came through, we popped open coolers to find they were filled with several different brands of sudsy brew. Nothing will keep the froth on a Miller Lite longneck bottle like a bag or two of government ice.

Let’s face it. When you’re dealing with insurance companies, you’re going need a drink. There’s no better time to “tie-one-on” than when your place is already trashed.

One guy even asked me if FEMA was going to bring any beer to the POD.

Fat chance.

Alas, all good things come to an end. The power coming back on was a bittersweet reunion. I wanted to ask SHECO if they could hold off on the power restoration.

At least until I could get some more jalapeno-stuffed dove breasts and a Miller Lite.