You’ve all seen pic­tures and heard the news of Sandy’s hit here on the East Coast last night. First off, we’re totally fine. There’s one per­son still sleep­ing in our bed (and it’s 1pm), but other than that, it’s a nor­mal Tuesday.

We had a gor­geous day here on Sat­ur­day. By the time Sun­day rolled around, the grey skies reminded us that yes, we really were in for a storm. The weather reports oscil­lated between it being bad, really bad, and the worst. One late turn, and Sandy’s eye could be focused on us, rather than closer up north. So of course, we pre­pared for the worst.

On Sun­day night (we were a lit­tle late in the emer­gency pre­pared­ness process) the Diplo­Man and I headed out to gather some food, water, and beer. Enough to last a few days with­out hav­ing go to the store, at least. He had just found out that work was called off on Mon­day, so we were going to hole up, and have a hur­ri­cane party to celebrate.

This is what we found at the store.

Okay to be real, this was only the canned food aisle, and a lit­tle bit of the water and cereal aisles. I was tempted pre­tend I didn’t know a thing about this storm, and be the one per­son in the store buy­ing eggs, milk, cheese, and sausages dur­ing a semi-emergency state. But I refrained, but mostly because we had to save room in our bags to carry all our beers home.

Being from the West Coast, I’m used to earth­quake pre­pared­ness. Mind you, being “pre­pared” for an earth­quake really only hap­pens when you are in ele­men­tary school, and you bring a bag of canned food with your name on it at the begin­ning of the school year. And then the first week of school prac­tice your ‘duck and cover’ rou­tine as a class. Other than that, there is no earth­quake prepa­ra­tion. Earth­quakes give no warnings!

We walked home from the store, and by that time a light driz­zle had started com­ing down on us. I woke up on Mon­day to hear the rain rap­ping on the win­dows. Noth­ing too crazy, just a rainy morn­ing. I played on my com­puter for a lit­tle bit, and then a cou­ple of our friends came over. We popped a few drinks and played some games. I took a nap. We had an amaz­ing din­ner: a hur­ri­cane soup, com­prised of mostly left­over veg­eta­bles from the veg­etable drawer (recipe below) and spaghetti with sausage ragu (sausage c/o Eco-Friendly Foods).

We kept peer­ing out the win­dow, wait­ing for the worst. We kept our eyes on our Twit­ter and Face­book feeds, even­tu­ally real­iz­ing that it was New York who was in for the worst.

While we here in DC were ‘vic­tims’ of non-stop rain and pretty gusty winds all day, it was no match to what my friends up in NY saw. I kept check­ing the front page of the NY Times, which was con­stantly updat­ing the web­site with pho­tos of the city under four feet of water. I couldn’t help but think: the art in Chelsea!! The trees in Brook­lyn!! The base­ment stor­age rooms of all the restau­rants in the West Village!

Here in DC, our power stayed on, we were con­nected to wifi, and we were warm and dry. Our bel­lies were full. Our shelves were stocked. We even went out and danced in the rain for a bit.

This is how you dress to go dance in the rain in Logan Circle.

Thank you any­way, friends and fam­ily, for think­ing of us and for all the lit­tle texts and emails and phone calls that came our way. Unfor­tu­nately, my day was noth­ing but a stormy day stuck inside with a few boys (I went just slightly crazy with cabin fever) and a lot of drinks.

Hur­ri­cane Sandy Soup

Ingre­di­ents:

• 2 cups chicken broth (low sodium)
• 2 cups water
• 1 small yel­low onion, thinly sliced
• 4–6 large kale leaves, stemmed and coarsely chopped
• 2 cel­ery stalks, chopped
• 1 small bunch broc­col­ini, flo­rets only
• 2 cups spinach leaves, loosely packed

Direc­tions:

1. Com­bine first four ingre­di­ents in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Turn heat down, cover, and let sim­mer for 20 min­utes. If liq­uid looks low (nei­ther the Diplo­Man nor I like too much broth in our soups, but some of you do!), add up to another cup of water. Add chopped cel­ery and broc­col­ini, cover and sim­mer for another 10 min­utes. Finally add spinach. Stir and let sim­mer, uncov­ered, for 5–10 more min­utes. Serve from the pot, hot, along­side bread, pasta, or salad.

Options: (1) Car­rots, cubed pota­toes, bok choy, or any other veg­gies you might have lying around. Or, (2) crack a few eggs into the soup after adding the spinach, so you have a heartier serv­ing with poached eggs. (3) If serv­ing as an entrée, ver­mi­celli noo­dles would fare well in this soup. Make sure to soak the noo­dles until they are clear and add them with the spinach.

Yield: 4 appetizer-sized serv­ings, 2 entrée-sized servings

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