A Powerless Dinner Party

On June 29 a strong, crazy storm came through Richmond (and pretty much the rest of Virginia).  They are calling it a derecho.  This is something we don't have around here...evidently it is well-known to folks in the central and southern plains.  It is  an intense, long-lived line of thunderstorms.  These particular storms raced eastward at nearly 60 mph from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic coast. The storm killed at least 20 people, caused millions in property damage, and caused massive power outages in major urban areas along the storm’s path.

We were only out of power for about 41 hours....we were pretty lucky....and we had no property damage.

We did have a dinner party planned though....for Bill's Americorps team.  Bill retired a year ago and has spent the last year as an Americorps volunteer....giving him time to figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life.  His Americorps team (Bill and 3 young women) tutored and mentored at a City elementary school.  He wanted to have them to dinner before they scattered for the summer...this was our last chance.

So we did it....without power.

We brought in two large coolers and iced down everything we would need...and a few more things.

This is the mess....and yes, that is a glass of wine....I started early.

Bill cooked macaroni in a pot on the grill so that I could make macaroni salad.  We had a bean salad and caprese salad and he cooked pork tenderloins on the grill.

We had no dessert...hard to do without an oven or a freezer....but I don't think we missed it.

This experience should make our next dinner party a breeze.