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Food for Thought: Eating in the time of the big snow

Nancy Leson
/
KNKX
Nancy's husband Mac readies a batch of snowbound pork chops

With weather conditions too extreme for my usual gyrocopter commute, I was forced to hitch up Yukon King to break trail for the mush into snowbound Fort KNKX. It was a hard slog, but I arrived in time to connect with Nancy Leson, calling in from her Edmonds Fortress of Freeze to trade our snow dining experiences.

Last week, I'd planned to stock up on edibles in anticipation of the coming storm. But one circuit through the parking-lot traffic jam convinced me to try getting by on leftovers.

Nancy was intrepid enough to cruise her local market and was surprised at the item that went first. The shelves were stripped bare of canned beef broth. Chicken broth? Plenty. Vegetable broth? Even more. But where's the beef? "Everyone was going home to make beef stew?" she asked.   

If so you're better off using chicken broth instead. It subs fine and I've yet to come across a canned or boxed "beef" broth that didn't taste more like aluminum foil steeped in liquid shoe polish. 

Nance raided her freezer for all of her stored chicken carcasses and made a giant pot of stock. She cleaned the meaty bits off the bones for her dogs. And she baked up a no-knead loaf

Credit Nancy Leson / KNKX
/
KNKX
Nancy's snowpocalypse provisions

My cooking was strictly for the birds. I'd negligently left the hummingbird feeder out over night. In the morning it was frozen solid and the morning's first hummers looked distinctly miffed. Those little guys needed their calories! A two minute nuke in the microwave reliquified it, and we pasted a heat patch onto the bottom to keep it sippable. The hummers tanked up all day long. 

My favorite cold weather meal? Tomato soup with rice with Cheez-Its for croutons and a grilled cheese and bacon san.  Yours?

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."  –e.e. cummings

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.