Blizzard Warning!
When you live on the Canadian prairies, blizzards are not unexpected. I have experienced some lollapaloozas in my memory but not surprisingly, the most precious one was when I was little. In the midst of the storm, we could not see the Dyers’ home across the street, when in clear weather, my Mom could see her good friend at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I know that schools closed (not such a thrill for me because I loved school) and my Dad got to stay home from work. But true to form, he went to all the neighbours and took their lists for provisions and then snow-shoed to the grocery store pulling a toboggan to ensure that neighbouring families all had milk and bread. I recall the post storm photos in the Winnipeg Free Press of all the stranded Eaton’s staff and shoppers who had to spend the night in the mattress department (I remember thinking how cool that would be). Just after the enormous drifts accumulated, my two eldest brothers fashioned a snow slide which started on the roof of the garage, down a snow bank and right to the far corner of the back yard. Good times.
The storm that is forecast to hit today has been predicted for days and in anticipation, I have an extra big storehouse of red wine. Rural schools have already been closed and travel will be tricky for D’s entourage at work, who have assembled from Man/Sask for a food show. But other than that, it is business as usual (for now at least).
If we have to, we can always make what I call refrigerator pizza. We did so last Sunday (for mandatory dinner) just because I had an excess of sauces and pestos around. I made double batch of dough in our bread-maker with ingredients that are always in the house. Daughter #2, who is a professionally trained pizza maker, is always put in charge of expertly stretching and forming the pies into shape. I am in awe of her ability, at this and every skill that I see my children demonstrate that I (or D) didn’t personally teach them. She also supervises the application of ingredients knowing that you want to go very light-handed with the sauce and have two layers of cheese-one right next to the sauce and the second on top of your varied ingredients.
These were the resulting refrigerator concoctions:
Margherita on the pizza stone
and out of the oven.
Meat lovers with Italian deli purchases of salami and spicy sausage.
Daughter #1 and 3’s fav of Alfredo sauce, spinach, roasted chicken and feta.
And my favourite of the evening: ham, asparagus and sun-dried tomato pesto.
So get your head into the fridge and see what you can invent. You are going to need the calories for all that shoveling that awaits you.
Kath’s quote: “A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds and low temperatures. The difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have sustained winds or frequent gusts that are greater than or equal to 56 km/h (35 mph) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or a quarter mile or less and must last for a prolonged period of time — typically three hours or more”.-Wikipedia PS Blizzard is also the name of my favourite Dairy Queen treat.
Love-that is all.
[…] love, love, love this passage from a recent post on Kathryne Grisim’s Food Musings blog: “When you live on the Canadian prairies, blizzards are not unexpected. I have […]