broccoli tofu desperation
bits + pieces of real life from a long first week of the year
Ohhh, happy belated New Year!?!
So, I spoke too soon about the power “largely staying on” in the previous missive. Oh, like brutal heck I did. The start of the new year on our end has….been……ridiculous, but……what else did I really expect these days ?! Eh, not this.
On the other side of that snow-”storm of the century” was a wind storm.
Consequently, we apparently became one of 22,000 households across the state to lose power and join in on an official emergency status.
Consequently part II, it was a rough trio of days without power, and full-on week without running water.
I really should have taken that shower on New Year’s Eve, but there I was, carried away, enjoying a cozy evening of pasta, bubbles and reading with Jules and the cats. D’oh.
After living over a year with the normality (and sanity! and dinner-time flexibility! the casual yet imperative hand-washing!!) of running water again, it was psychologically and physically draining.
I flash back to that first day of losing power and those seemingly quick worries of “How long will this one last?”.
We let the kitchen sink drip, to help avoid a freeze. It quickly became an icicle.
The heater stopped, and the temperature hit a low of 17F – inside our cabin.
Consequently, part III, we started using our rustic outhouse for something besides storage (finally?!) More importantly, we packed up the cats and headed across town for warmth.
We “washed” our hands with snow / hand sanitzer / snow….repeat.
A few days in, I took a shower inside a barrel at my neighbor’s house. True story. It was wonderful.
We ate our meals over tea lights & headlamps from a seriously-well-timed pot of soup for the first few days (yemeni-spiced red lentil, for the record). I carried that pot of soup out to the car to freeze at night. It easily hit -30F come darkness.
I’ve got a whole other anecdote somewhere about moving everything in the not-running fridge + freezer into coolers and again, the “icebox” car, those initial two days. You get the point.
We then got out hands on battery-run utility lights for the last spell without electricity. Calm reminder: we were at about five full hours of sunlight by “day” this time of year.
At some point, as an-acquired generator churned & churned, our area’s electricity did return, and then a down line made for another half-day without.
Four days later, the power held, but the water remained off. The pipes were very much frozen, and consequently (part IV), an exploded water filter was in need of professional help.
Perhaps, that week without water was even harder-hitting because we’d lived dry our first year-and-a-half in Alaska. It’s something you (mostly) get used to. It’s do-able, just, what’s the word? Exhausting. And easily, immediately, perpetually….pretty dirty. It’s like camping, inside your own place, without a river to wash your hands in. Again, it’s do-able and absolutely common-place in the interior (with the gas station in town having both shower & laundry set-up), but we both sleep better with it behind us. 110%.
In short, we were under-prepared for this surprise return to dry life.
So very many more lessons in “frontier” preparedness were learned.
We did have a full 5 gallon jug with a spout outside – it was just out in the garden, frozen solid under several feet of snow. Fortunately, we had a small supply of 1 gallon jugs of distilled water. We were not quite at the point of melting the (now dirty) snow.
We focused on keeping warm, keeping sane, and keeping each other company. We used that outhouse, a lot of hand sanitzer, stuck our hands in snow, attempted to catch up on reading, and again, tried to keep sane (and the cats calm).
It was a rare time in my life that I didn’t want to cook. We were already low on fresh ingredients after the week prior’s snowstorm and the postponement of our monthly-ish run to Fairbanks. I was clearly low on energy and any inspiration, switching to practical mode.
Cue throwing noodles & spices & frozen veg & that bottled water into a trusty cast iron, turning up the heat, and calling it dinner. Sharing it out of a paper cup, refusing to add to our existing pile of dirty dishes. Turning to the precious nong shim vegan ramen supply.
In more feasible times of long days – and running water – I would have looked to the instantpot for another giant pot of soup. However, the existing dirty dishes (which is SO unlike us!) already included a dutch oven and the nightmare-inducing unusable sink did not need any new friends.
All those fortunate years with a dishwasher (!!!) in Portland really made their mark, and that year-plus of living dry up here left a different one.
Evidently, the month is now almost behind us (!?!) and we’re on the other side of this. So far. Temperatures have been sixty degrees “less cold” than that now-infamous first week !
Yes, the water is running again. It was not an easy fix. My hair dryer has already come in handy since. A, ha. Alaska life.
Overall, my head is clearer now, so I can almost comfortably reflect on the most satisfying cast iron affair of the experience. The “romanic” nights of dinners in the dark, or something resembling it.
I daresay the following will enter the repertoire after some more time goes by to process, and move on. Perhaps over the summer campfires to come….aka light years away…..
CAST IRON BROCCOLI + TOFU with DESPERATION and UMAMI
serves 2 as a main dish or 3-4 as a side
INGREDIENTS:
1 block (14oz-16oz) of firm tofu, drained well, patted dry, and cut into 1-2 inch cubes
2-3 cups of broccoli, cut into florets and peeled & chopped stalks
2 teaspoons of grapeseed oil or other preferred cooking oil
1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
½ teaspoon red chilli* powder or paprika - see note below
½ tablespoon of white miso….or whatever miso you have
1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
Pinch of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoons of ‘liquid aminios’ or soy sauce
Optional: finish with fresh lemon or lime or a quick splash of preferred vinegar
DIRECTIONS:
First, prep the tofu and vegetables.
Next, heat up your cast iron pan, drizzle in the oil, and add the tofu. Let that tofu cook to a crisp on the bottom. You want a nice golden crust that will also make it easy to flip over when the time is right. This should take a few minutes…to a few minutes more.
Carefully flip all of the tofu once you achieve universal crust-goodness on the bottom of each piece. Don’t rush this one. Then, sprinkle on the nutritional yeast and chili powder, and let cook until the other side has also reached crisp-osity.
Now, turn off the heat, remove the cooked tofu from the pan to a large side plate, and add the broccoli and miso, stirring a bit to mush up the miso on the bottom of the warm pan.
Turn the heat back up to HOT and let it all sit a minute or so to get a sear going on some broccoli, and then drizzle in the toasted sesame oil.
Sprinkle in the salt and black pepper, and cook another few minutes, turning the heat down to medium. Add a spoonful of water if you really want your broccoli “cooked”. I didn’t see the need in my state, but I thought about it.
Lastly, add the tofu back in, go for that splash of liquid aminos or soy sauce, turn off the heat, serve, and finish with citrus or vinegar if you have the patience, and devour.
Serving suggestions: rice or instant ramen noodles…one day!
This was the definition of “HIT THE SPOT”.
The only legitimate desperation in its enjoyment was adding to the pile of dirty dishes (& we shared that bowl!)
Mostly, I’m grateful to the past jess who held off on cooking those last crowns of (California? Mexico? sigh) broccoli…and I’m glad we ate some good hot food.
Understandably, our meals got weirder from this point on. Helloooo, frozen peas.
NOTE:
*I must admit I used this lovely guntur sammal chilli powder a friend sent me from Portland (via Diasporo Co., via India).
Some Reflections + Life Lessons:
Keep the “go” bag up-to-date and accessible!
Ditto for flashlights, lighter, matchers and candles. Ditto for the go-go-go-cat supplies.
Ditto for shelf-stable supplies. Keep more than one can of beans in rotation.
Don’t rent from an out-of-state property owner.
When living in the sub-arctic, make sure there is a wood stove.
Bake way more bread.
Always more just-in-case drinking water on hand.
Be good to your neighbors & keep giving them your best bagels!
Deep breaths + more blankets.
REFERENCES + RELEVANT LINKS:
81261 Yemeni Spice Blend, Sahadi’s Fine Foods
Reflections, Noodles and Moose Day, scone.substack
Sourcing Guntur Sannam Chillies, Diaspora Co
University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute’s Aurora Forecast
Psst, for the record, for all of my exhaustion with that harrowing week, I remain in awe of Alaska. Majestic moose. Starry nights. Snow strolls. Northern lights dancing above. The snowshoe hare that ran across my path the other day. More moose. Our supply of frozen, foraged berries we picked with our own hands. This wild, wild, wild frontier.
Wow... just wow. I also didn't know that you lived without water for your first year up there!