Cooking up a storm

Work let out early today so people had a chance to get home before the snow got too bad. I was shocked to stop by the cheaper gas station to find that they had NO 87 octane left! 6 pumps and no regular gas left. Long as the grocery lines were yesterday, I was glad we did our grocery shopping then, as the parking lots of the 2 grocery stores I passed on the way home were utterly packed. There was even a line to get into the lot of the store with the smaller parking lot!

Once home and lunch eaten, the cooking frenzy began. I started w/ pea soup, which the Chief loves. At his request, a mince pie was next (another item he loves and I don't touch), followed by a small apple pie. After all, I wanted to use up the pie crust left over from last week's pumpkin pie - couldn't bear the thought of letting it go bad! ;) Meanwhile, the Chief was making cranberry sauce, with two of the oldest apples thrown in for variety. Hey, if Ocean Spray can sell people on cran-apple juice, why not throw an apple or two into the cranberry sauce, right? I also plan to make another vat of vegetable beef soup, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow, as the oxtails are still frozen solid.

We still have enough tetrazzini left over for 2 more meals, a little bit of last week's veggie beef soup on hand, and even one last portion of pot roast. We've got plenty of our usual staples, so what with that, leftovers and soup, we're in no danger of starving, even if we don't dig out until Monday.

And it will be interesting to see how much snow we end up getting. The more conservative forecast of the two radio stations we had on in the kitchen was predicting 16"-24". The other station was predicting 20"-30"! Every forecast seems to agree that this storm will outsnow the one we had the week before Christmas, which was more than enough snow to suit me, thankyewverrymuch!

We're now missing 4 rehearsals in 8 days to all this snow - Saturday, Tuesday, tonight and tomorrow. They've added rehearsals the next 2 Sundays and this Wednesday in hopes of catching up. Given that we open 3 weeks from tonight, I earnestly hope we don't have any more snow, or at least nothing significant, until after we close the first weekend of March. Actually, if this were the last snow we get all winter, I'd be quite happy, although there are rumors of yet another snowfall Tuesday or Wednesday. No, please, no more snow!!! We can't afford to lose any more rehearsal time!