Hurricane Food is what's for Dinner    
By Patricia White

      A very wise friend told me once that if you decide, “What’s for dinner,” in the morning and get everything laid out, your day goes much more smoothly. Folks, at 9 a.m. it is just too early to think about what we might want to eat for dinner nine hours away. I haven’t even put in my breakfast order yet. At the moment, I can only think about the donut I want to go with my coffee.

     I must admit planning early in the day is better than asking whomever is in the room, at 6 p.m., “What are we going to eat for dinner?” Because that person always answers with another question like, “What sounds good to you?" Well hail, if I knew the answer to that, I’d have laid it out at 9 a.m. and we’d be eating right now. Not being able to decide what to cook early in the day usually means I don’t want to cook. Not knowing what I want to eat, when there is nothing cooked at 6 p.m. is another story and the indecision takes on a life of its own. We pour up another glass of wine, pull out a box of crackers. We scratch around in the pantry and refrigerator looking for  possibilities. My sweet man says he will run to the Kroger or the nearest restaurant if I will just tell him what I want to eat. I’m thinking. I go to the laundry room to switch over some clothes to the dryer and there sits the freezer, like an oasis in the desert. It always holds several possibilities, including previously cooked delicacies, dated and ready to throw into a pot or the microwave. However, if we eat something from the freezer, our hurricane food will be depleted and who knows for sure when we will cook again…..or when a hurricane will hit.  Digging through the freezer and reorganizing while I'm there, I count containers of each variety. We have the most quart-size cartons of soup. So, soup is what’s for dinner tonight, and cornbread. Emergency cornbread from the freezer.

     After dinner, I suggest that we start thinking about what we will eat tomorrow. I want to hit the kitchen early while cooking is still a good idea and all my systems are go. I don’t cook after five any more. My day shifts into slow motion. However, we do need to cook a big pot of something and replace that food we took from the freezer. I’m thinking chicken and dumplings. I make the grocery list knowing this soul food is going to be tasty as well as hot and ready-to-eat tomorrow night by 6 p.m. if I start early.

     The phone rings loudly, “Bo Diddley caught him a bear cat; to make his pretty baby a Sunday hat. Go, Bo Diddley.” (I love that ring tone) It’s an automated message from our dentist’s office to remind us we have an appointment at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Well, that surely leaves no time for grocery shopping or cooking. But, a trip into town stirs up other possibilities for our day. We will probably eat lunch at some MSG-free restaurant, mosey in and out of a few favorite stores searching for that little something new that a girl might need to make it through the week.  It will be 5 o’clock somewhere, by the time we get home, but at least there will be no last minute decisions about what's for dinner. We will split whatever lunch leftovers the waitress puts in our take-home box. Maybe I’ll throw a little salad together. Ice Cream with hot fudge at news time.  Tomorrow will be easy.

      I’ll make those Chicken ‘n Dumplings one day soon,or Gumbo or red beans and rice. Until then, there’s always  boxed mac and cheese in the pantry  or the emergency food in the freezer…….no signs of a hurricane brewing in the gulf. Gawd, we get lucky sometimes. Wait, is that thunder I hear?