The power is out, and we have meat to cut

By: 
Steva Dooley

I was just getting ready to write this column on Tuesday morning — yes, I push the deadline most every week, much to Nathan’s chagrin — when the power went out. Thankfully, I have a laptop and the battery should last long enough to get my columns done this morning. It might be a little dark to cut meat this afternoon though, which brings back memories of another time meat was being cut up and the power went out. 

Picture it: Missoula, end of December, about -20º, and we are cutting and packaging a beef that Rick’s dad had brought us as a Christmas present. It wasn’t storming or anything that would make one think the power might go out, but all of a sudden, blink, and there were no lights. We didn’t worry too much about it: Rick took a flashlight to the shed, brought in the Colman camping lantern, started it up and we went back to cutting meat. 

I had gotten kind of tired of a beef thawing out on my kitchen floor. He kind of took up a lot of room in the kitchen in our mobile home. Anyway, we went back to cutting when, all of a sudden, we noticed the neighbor. He was literally — and I mean this — running around in circles in his yard. I could feel for them because their house was all electric. At least we had a gas hot water heater and furnace, and though that furnace didn’t do much without electric, we did have hot water. 

He noticed the light in our kitchen window and came over to demand why we had lights. I don’t know if he thought we had a generator and should share or what. Granted, he was a city slicker and hadn’t learned to make do like Rick and I had. We invited him in and calmed him down some. He couldn’t believe we were cutting up a beef, half of which was still thawing on the floor. We made sure he had wood for his stove for heat, visited a little while we were cutting and then sent him home. 

About that time, I looked out the window towards the upper end of the trailer court and immediately knew why we had no power. Up in the middle of the court, there was a transformer glowing red and, as I watched, it exploded. Apparently, the electrical had been put in many years before when most trailers only needed a 50-amp service. Suddenly, this trailer court had several trailers that needed 200-amp service for electric furnaces, which overloaded the system. The power was only out a couple of hours before we were back in business. We finished cutting the beef that night, packed it out to the shed and left the boxes there. It was so cold that it froze solid by morning and the freezer didn’t have to work too hard. 

 

Old Fashioned Corn Bread 

1 cup corn meal

1 cup all-purpose flour (I make this with an all-purpose gluten free and it is just fine)

¼ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ cup shortening (butter, ghee or any neutral oil will work well)

2 eggs

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400º. While the oven is heating, put an 8-inch cast iron skillet in there with a dollop of shortening in it. Mix the batter until smooth, pour into the skillet and return to the oven. Bake for 25 minutes or until firm when pressed with a finger. Cut in wedges, slather with butter and honey. 

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