Trial Run: Lessons Learned
We have most everything put away now, a real pain in the neck, but we keep in mind that it is not as much a pain in the neck as losing everything, or having to hack a hole in your own roof to escape a flood which completely ruins a house so you have to rebuild and live somewhere else while you are rebuilding. It’s even a lot easier than having a window or roof or garage breached, and the resulting damage from wind-driven rain, or just sheets of rain.
Today has had higher gusts of wind and frequent showers, and an occasional breakthrough of Pensacola sunshine.
We know how long it takes to put on our window protection – and take it off. We know how long it takes to clear all the potential flying objects out of our backyard. We know a couple vulnerable points, and that it’s going to be expensive to get a fix big enough to give us complete protection. It’s a gamble.
Here is something else I know, very valuable.
I know that I can keep hot coffee and hot water HOT for five days.
This great thermal jug from Qatar had coffee still warm after five days – not hot, but warm.
This little thermos from Starbucks kept coffee very warm, but not hot:
And this is a large thermos/ server I found in Kuwait and used for three years for large groups of ladies. Six years later, it is still working great. I poured boiling water into it on Sunday night, and on Thursday afternoon, it was still almost boiling hot. It was hot enough you can use it to make soup, which is just what you need to be able to do when you have no electricity and need to fix something that can warm you up.
The WINNER!
African Sweet Potato Peanut Soup
This is another wonderful recipe I found on allrecipes.com. My sweet daughter-in-law told me about allrecipes.com, and once I signed up, they started sending me recipes every day. Not all of them are of interest to me, but most of those I have tried have been really good.
We LOVE this soup. It is delicious, and easy to fix. While it is an African recipe, we find that many of the most delicious Southern dishes are similar to African dishes, probably because there were so many African ex-pats brought to the USA and settled in the South a few hundred years ago. Their legacy lives on in Southern cookbooks.
African Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup
Ingredients
• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 3 medium tomatoes, chopped
• 1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
• 1 bunch fresh chopped cilantro
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Mix in the garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cayenne and cloves. Stir in the tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrot, and continue to cook and stir about 5 minutes.
2. Pour chicken broth into the saucepan, and season the mixture with salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes. Add peanut butter.
3. Remove the soup mixture from heat. With a blender wand, blend the soup and peanuts until almost smooth. Stir in fresh cilantro. Serve hot.
Tabak Rohoo: A Damascene Dish
Syria is heavy on our hearts, and in our helplessness, we honor our Syrian friends by trying a Damascus dish, Tabak Rohoo.
Although we did not manage to empty the cooking pot by sliding the completed dish out still in layers (a challenge for the future), this dish was so delicious that we plan to have it often. AdventureMan was amazed; he doesn’t even like lamb, but this lamb is delicious.
It is hard to imagine that this dish might be even better if made with ghee. We substituted a very good olive oil. 🙂
The recipe is from allrecipes.com, where I find some of the best recipes ever 🙂
A Vegetable Stew – Tabakh Rohoo
SUBMITTED BY: ALMALOU
“This is an Arabic vegetable stew made in layers and served with steamed rice or bulgur. My Damascene sister in law recently showed me how to make this. It is delicious. The addition of ghee or rendered butter at the end of the cooking is a traditional Damascene style of cooking; however, these days these dishes are made without the extra fat.”
PREP TIME
20 Min
COOK TIME
1 Hr 15 Min
READY IN
1 Hr 35 Min
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
• 1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter)
• 1 pound lamb meat, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch ground cardamom
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 potato, peeled and sliced
• 1 pound eggplant, peeled and cubed
• 1 pound zucchini, thickly sliced
• 2 pounds tomatoes, cubed
• 1 chile pepper, chopped
• salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1/4 cup water
• 6 cloves garlic
• salt to taste
• 3 tablespoons dried mint
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat the ghee in a large pot over medium heat. Place the lamb meat in the pot, and cook until evenly brown. Season with allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom.
2. Place a layer of onion on top of the lamb in the pot, followed by layers of potato, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. Do not stir. Place the chile pepper in the center of the vegetables. Season with salt. Mix the tomato paste and water, and pour over the vegetables. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 1 hour, until vegetables are tender.
3. With a mortar and pestle, crush together the garlic, salt, and mint. Mix with 2 tablespoons of liquid from the pot, and pour over ingredients in pot. (I used a mini-jar on my blender. I tried the mortor and pestle, but there was a lot of stuff and it was messy and unsuccessful. The blender did just fine, and this mixture is essential to the delicious nature of the dish – Intlxpatr)
When removing the mixture to the serving dish – a fairly open or wide bowl – tip the pot and let it slide out the side so that it stays in the layers.
Hurricane Isaac Hanging Around
Hurricane Isaac – for Pensacola – has turned out to be not so much. Yes, there has been high water, due to the ceaseless winds pushing water onshore. Yes, there are some bursts of high winds. Yes there are some heavy showers.
We’ve seen worse, we’ve had worse storms. The think about Hurricane Isaac is that while there is nothing you can put your finger on, he is like that annoying guest who stays too long. He is hanging around, and we would like to get on with our lives.
Example: Our grandson’s school is still closed, and our son and his wife need to go to work today. Fortunately, AdventureMan and the Happy Toddler have a great relationship, and AdventureMan has made a plan to introduce him today to the public library, it’s treasure trove of childrens’ books, and that you can take them home – but you have to take them back. We hope the library is open today! We don’t know! It’s just annoying and inconvenient, these are minor things, not the great huge overwhelming problems that Plaquemines Parish is facing with their huge guest who insists on hanging around. Huge and slow, just the size and duration is causing expensive and life-threatening problems.
My plan for today is to put the heavy things back on the walls, mirrors I didn’t want to replace, framed art-work and hangings I didn’t want damaged if we were hit by the hurricane or tornado. Yes, there are still tornado warnings. No, I am not so worried.
At 6:30 this morning it was hot and humid. At 0900, it is still hot and humid, with occasional showers of warm rain. Aargh. Thanks be to God, no flooding in our house, no breeches in our defenses. We’re ready to move on. We’re ready for this to be over.
Noon 28 August 2012, and Isaac Becomes a Hurricane
We’ve had some squalls, wind and rain, but at noon the skies are blue with some clouds, the wind has dropped, and we decide to see how things look. Many are closed and boarded up, few are open. Our favorite lunch spot is open:
The sun is shining, but it is weird:
As we are eating, we learn that Isaac has now been declared a hurricane. We decide not to drive over the two bridges to the beach, but we take a look downtown and take the Bayshore Route home. The downtown marina is almost entirely empty:
The pelicans are enjoying a little surf:
Over on Bayou Texar, you can see that the water level is very high. The piers in the park have totally disappeared, and our favorite restaurant, the Oyster Barn, is underwater – oh NO!
This heron is happy to have the pier all to himself, until a local fisherman comes along and scares him away:
These people have temporarily lost their dock on the Bayou:
Now back home, the sun is hidden by the thickening clouds, rain falls in flurries and we can hear the wind whistling down our chimney. We are glued to our TV’s, keeping up with what is going on in New Orleans and Louisiana. It looks like the eye may be heading west of New Orleans, more toward New Iberia.
ReBirth in the Midst of Chaos
“Come look! Quick, come look!”
As AdventureMan was making preparations to move the potted plants indoors, he discovered a Black Swallowtail chrysalis had split, and a new swallowtail was born. It wasn’t easy to capture this resting brand-new butterfly, newly out of the chrysalis, hidden deep within the bronze fennel plant, but so beautiful!
As I headed through the guest suite to the French doors, I saw something flutter . . . and it was a newly born Gulf Fritillary – in our guest room! We must have brought it in with the garden furniture – those chrysalis are often hard to spot.
“I need your help!” I called to AdventureMan. (I don’t handle insects!) He rushed to my assistance and was astonished to see another newborn.
If you had known AdventureMan in his business persona, managing multimillion dollar contracts, you would not believe this new AdventureMan, who cultivates a garden that attracts butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, who grows tomatoes and hot peppers, who takes photos and identifies rare birds flying overhead, and whose favorite time of all is spent with his grandson. 🙂
0800, 27 August Isaac Stalls
In Pensacola this morning, there is some wind, there are some half-hearted showers. So far, so good.
We continued our preparations yesterday, bringing in the plants, bird feeders, and assorted watering cans and my potting bench. I boiled water for our large Qatar coffee thermos, and filled the freezer with more water containers. I took some of the heavier things off the walls and cleared my desk of anything which could fly around, then, in a flurry of compulsive activity, polished the desktop, since it’s been a while since I have seen it empty.
Now . . . we wait.
Last week, I was telling a friend that we’ve been in Pensacola two years now, and I am starting to get edgy. We’ve moved so often, that at the two year point, I feel the need to start packing up. I find myself looking at houses online. At the very least, I think about moving the furniture around. (AdventureMan hates it when I move the furniture. He takes it personally. He thinks I am mad at him, LOL! No! I am just restless.)
We have been asking God’s mercy on the Gulf communities, and now New Orleans. If you have the eyes to see, the Weather Channel has been talking about the dry winds that have been disrupting Isaac’s efforts to organize into a full fledged hurricane. The storm in huge, but the center is disperse. They are saying that it will mean a lot of wind, a lot of rain and a surge in the water level. None of this is new to Pensacola, nor to most communities on the Gulf. God is merciful. We can weather this slow storm, God willing.
Here are some photos from last night, as clouds and rain move in. So far, no where near as threatening as the normal Pensacola heavy rains and thunderstorms.
Tap Tap Whiiiiiinnnneee Screech in Pensacola
Pensacola is a Job kind of city, circumstances keep sending lethal blows and Pensacola keeps bouncing back, but not without pain. Already, we have had floods this year, record rains, and several of the places who were flooded, Waterfront Mission, Manna Food Pantry, Loaves and Fishes, etc. were charities on which the poorest of the poor, the jobless, the homeless and the transients, rely.
And now Isaac.
Sunday mornings, as in many towns in the South, the people go to church. The biggest churches are Baptist and then maybe Methodist. Then comes the rest of us, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Congregationalists, the Unitarians, the Mormons, so many different kinds of Christians!
We hit the early service, which, for one of the last Sundays in August, was relatively well attended. After church, while it was still relatively cool outside (in the 80’s F. not the 90’s F.) we put up our window shields and brought all our outside furnishings inside. Tomorrow we will bring the plants into the garage. Anything that can be picked up by a high wind can become a missile; we want to give the high winds as little ammunition as possible.
All aroound us we can hear the tap tap of hammers hammering in plywood slabs (those who were lucky enough to buy plywood early; rumor has it that there is no more plywood to be found) and the whiiiiinnnee of electric drills screwing window coverings on and the Sccrrreeeeech of window coverings being drawn closed. We are also exchanging phone numbers, so we can help one another if the worst happens, and we suffer a direct hit.
Today, Father Tim reminded us in the midst of all our self-absorption and survival-oriented errands that we are to be a blessing to others. I saw that happen when Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola, and our son stayed. He met another fellow living nearby and they have become fast friends. Out of the worst circumstances, can come great blessings.
We trust God has this all in his hands. And we also continue our preparations against the coming of Isaac.
The newest 5 day forecast shows Isaac has wobbled to the West:
Ominous Signs in Libya; Shrines Destroyed
I’ve been watching for news out of Libya, and have been surprised at how little there has been – and then this. This is not a good sign. This is not Libyan; this is outside influence. Similar destructions are going on in Mali; an intolerant branch of Islam beieves saints shrines to be idolatry. From today’s AOL /Huffington Post News:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Attackers bulldozed a Sufi Muslim shrine and mosque in the Libyan capital on Saturday, one day after hardliners razed a similar shrine and library elsewhere in the country.
It was not immediately clear who was behind Saturday’s attack, the third on a Sufi shrine in Tripoli in recent months, although officials have blamed past vandalism on Islamic hardliners, some of whom are followers of the ultraconservative Salafi doctrine.
Libya is a deeply conservative Muslim nation, and Islamists were heavily repressed under longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was captured and killed in October after an eight-month civil war. Since then, there has been a string of attacks on shrines across the country belonging to Muslim sects.
The campaign appears to be aimed mainly at shrines revered by Sufis, a mystical order whose members often pray over the tombs of revered saints and ask for blessings or intervention to bring success, marriage or other desired outcomes. Hard-line Salafi Muslims deem the practice offensive because they consider worshipping over graves to be idolatry.
Libya’s Grand Mufti, Sheik Sadek al-Ghariani, condemned the vandalism and said it was the government’s responsibility to protect the graves.
“No group outside of the government should use weapons and it is the responsibility of the government to provide security and prevent religious strife and division,” he said in a statement Saturday.
Resident Abdullah Zakaria said he saw the bulldozers destroy the Sufi tombs Saturday morning. Hours later a group of men bulldozed a mosque in the same area that also contained tombs.
Security officials closed the road leading to the shrines and mosque but did not intervene to stop the men from attacking the mosque hours later. Police were seen instead protecting a nearby hotel.
Interim President Mohammed el-Megarif said in a televised speech Saturday called the actions “unacceptable” and vowed the perpetrators would be prosecuted. He also called on citizens and the security services to be more vigilant in preventing disruptive behavior.
Following the civil war, Libya has been largely without a military or police force and has relied on disparate militias to provide security and protect government installations.
Libyan writer Fathi Bin Eissa, a Sufi, said he had hoped the police would investigate who ordered past desecration of the shrines and wanted answers as to why security forces moved to protect the hotel, but did nothing as the mosque was being bulldozed before their eyes.
A security official said the police were ordered only to ensure violence does not break out.
Other attacks have taken place in the past against shrines in the eastern cities of Darna and Benghazi.
More recently, extremists on Friday bulldozed one of Libya’s most important Sufi shrines and Sufi libraries in the city of Zlitan, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.
Security officials say the attackers took advantage of deadly clashes between tribes in Zlitan this week to attack the more than 500-year-old shrine and library.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Dead Fox in the MIddle of the Road
This morning as I made my early rounds, I saw a dead cat on the road outside our house.
“How sad,” I thought, “someone’s sweet kitty didn’t make it across the road.” It is odd, though, you don’t see a lot of cats here outside. Most people keep their cats inside, or within a limited area outdoors.
When AdventureMan got up, he said the same thing. We hoped someone hadn’t just dumped a cat out there; we know there are cases where people just can’t care for their animals anymore, but there are places that will take domestic pets in and try to re-home them. Just to dump them is so unfair to an animal who is used to being fed and (hopefully) loved.
AdventureMan got a couple heavy duty garbage bags and we double bagged them. He put on some non-latex rubber gloves and we headed to the road. When he picked up the dead cat, we got a real surprise. It wasn’t a cat at all, but a skinny little fox! Also very dead, and not very healthy looking.
We both scrubbed down, and hope that we didn’t get any kind of rabies virus or anything else on us, but meanwhile, I am wondering – where on earth would a fox make a burrow in our suburban neighborhood? I am sure he was heading down to the bayou for a drink; it hasn’t rained for a couple days now and he must have known there was water in the bayou (although not great water to drink with all the contaminants flowing into it from lawns and gardens and car washing, etc. ) but where does a fox family live??
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