Hurricane Irene!

For those of you who didn't know, Hurricane Irene was spinning itself into a little tizzy towards the Big Apple.  All the public transportation was shut down yesterday afternoon in preparation, there was a mandatory evacuation for the lowest areas of the city, (no need to worry, I live about a block from the highest point in Brooklyn), and people freaked out buying large quantities of water.  This could have been the worst storm New York has seen in a very long time.  We were on lock down.  In the end it was overkill and the storm was down graded to a tropical storm before it reached us.  It still accomplished plenty of damage, though not too much that we could see around us.  It seemed to hit places farther north and inland like Connecticut and Vermont more.  

The view of the Sunday sunset after the storm

I thought about using the  time stuck inside to make a few new things that are a bit time consuming.  In the end I went with a classic: caramel rolls.  They were perfect for an after dinner treat last night.  And breakfast this morning.  My new roommate however, is from Louisiana.  Apparently having gumbo and yelling at the storm is a tradition and we were not about to break it now.  Originally, the storm was suppose to spin through Sunday afternoon, but it was pretty much over this morning by 7AM.  So we kinda missed the bulk of it being asleep and all.  

The winds have kept up their rage though and we all stuck to the indoors, minus a few trips to the roof and coffee shop and we still had gumbo.  My roommate and his friends he was staying with until he could move in, came over around 11 and started cooking the gumbo (they had started prepping Saturday).  We didn't eat it until about 6.  The kitchen was a mess.  There were 3 pots boiling at one point in time on the stove.  It smelled amazing.  Seriously.  We all hung out with the neighbors watching bad movies and playing a game or two to pass the time until it was ready.  His friends also made an amazing potato salad and boiled collards.  It was so good.  So good.  

Stupidly I didn't think to take a picture until it was all cleaned up. From the right: potato salad, chicken gumbo, & the boiled collards. 

I haven't asked him for the recipe yet, and I'm guessing a large part of it is unmeasured and all stored knowledge, but I really hope he shares it with me because I definitely want to make something like it sometime in the future.  And if god knows what kind of other things he makes but I am looking forward to having a roommate that can cook like this.  I will stay out of the kitchen if he wants to keep making dishes like this, although my bike riding may not be enough to counter act it.