The Week of the Hurriquake

As you are probably aware, the east coast has had it's share of natural disasters this past week. 

First, there was the earthquake last Monday. I barely felt it, and Kit missed it altogether, but it was exciting nonetheless. 

On Thursday, my good-friend-and-former-roommate Abby came to visit! She was in town for training and we were happy to distract her on her second-to-last day in the city. We made sweet-and-sour chicken and prayed that her flight would get out before the hurricane hit. More cornstarch in the sauce next time.

Abby and I in a ridiculously humid pre-hurricane heat.

Friday night, Kit made a fancy version of fried rice, cooked and presented in a pineapple!

 

Fancy presentation and it tasted even better.

Inspired by Kit's culinary ingenuity, we watched Julie and Julia that night--love that show.

 Also by Friday, the Hurricane frenzy was in full swing. The grocery store was PACKED and people were preparing for armageddon. It's good to know that when people panic and prepare for disasters, they stock up on the essentials: potato chips, donuts, and those squeezie kool-aid drinks.

Our food storage. . . we also bought a few gallons of water, which is good to have, regardless.

Saturday morning we went for a bike ride along the Hudson.

Beautiful ride, but it was like riding through the rainforest it was so humid.

In preparation for being cooped up all weekend, I made some muffins using a delicious recipe from Brenley. Since it didn't have some of the ingredients, I substituted (almond extract for vanilla, honey for molasses, and dried cherry bits and chocolate chips just for fun). The chocolate chips prolly negated the nutritional upside of the muffins, but they were gooood. I think Kit had about ten for dinner on Saturday.

We went to bed thinking that we'd be in the thick of the storm when we woke up, but Sunday morning brought only light rain and a little wind. Our kitchen ceiling leaked a bit, but our power was still on and everything was still good. 

There was a little flooding down by the river.

 

We drove to upstate New York since we were feeling cooped up. We tried to go to Stony Point battlefield, but the road was not just slightly washed out, but WAY washed out.

On our way back, we spent an extra hour tried to find roads that weren't closed for flooding, or fallen trees. This bridge literally washed away. It was clear that suburban New York got the storm much worse than us.

When we got home Sunday, I tried a new stuffed tomato recipe using lean turkey, tomato, mint, feta, rice, onion and a bit of cinnamon.

It was a success! They were very very good... Kit and I may or may not have fought over the last one. . .

On Monday morning, we drove up to Kit's work only to find it closed because a huge tree had fallen on the power lines and knocked out power to his office. So we came back and he worked from home. Monday night, our friend Allison called us and offered us free tickets to the Jets at Giants preseason game at New Meadowlands...score!

Here is the Jets' quarterback throwing a pass (Sanchez...I think?)

Eli Manning of the Giants waiting for the snap.

Us and Allison at our awesome, 40-yard line, 19th row, padded seats. Probably the best seat I'll ever have for a football game. Kit rooted for the Giants, and I rooted for the Jets, but it was all fun because they're both New York teams. (But it was also all fun because my team won....)

Tuesday night I tried another new recipe for "healthy fried chicken." It's healthy because the chicken isn't fried at all, just dredged in panko bread crumbs and baked at a high temp in the oven. No butter, no grease, and they were really good!

After dinner, we went over to one of Weehawken's parks on the waterfront. They were presenting a night of classic broadway songs. The performers were probably 2nd-3rd string broadway actors, but they were VERY talented. One of them is currently the understudy for Sutton Foster in "Anything Goes" on Broadway. 

The average age of the viewing audience was probably 60 (we're old souls), but it was super fun and we're glad we went!