Like most people on this board, I like to think I'm prepared to handle at least a short term SHTF situation. With the looming, potentially catastrophic winter storm hanging over our heads -- and my entire brood enjoying a day out of school while I worked from home -- I decided to have some fun and run a family preparedness drill over lunch: "Operation Duck Soup".
I picked the name partly in farce and partly in homage to the Marx Brothers movie of the same name. I also picked it to give the kids something ridiculous to remember the experience by.
For you hardcore guys, keep in mind this was done to test our basic survival plan under ideal circumstances (broad daylight, minor wind and precipitation, no emotional stress/pressure...) and to pass time on an otherwise miserable day -- not to prove I can hold out after the New Madrid fault slips and a North Korean armored unit invades north-central Hamilton County.
That said, the goal of Operation Duck Soup was this: to prepare a single can of chili on our backyard grill during a simulated weather emergency!
We started in the family room, where I announced that our electricity had just gone out, their mother was sick and we needed to prepare a meal on the backyard grill.
My youngest and I went out onto the back patio to uncover our standard issue propane grill.
I didn't get the blue tarp onto it until about three hours after the storm started last night, so it had a light coating of ice on it by that time, which was still there once I got the tarp off.
My hope was that I could either manually turn the knobs or easily chip through the thin ice with my Swiss Army knife. If that didn't work, I had pre-prepared a large pot of warm, salty water and was prepared to apply that to the frozen knobs. Don't know if that would have made it better or worse, but it was my initial idea. (feedback is welcome on this point)
Happily, the thin ice on the grill controls broke with just a little pressure from my hand when turning the knobs. At first, the burners wouldn't ignite, but then I realized I hadn't turned the gas nozzle on, so I had to go around to the back of the unit to do that. It still took about three attempts before I got any of the burners going. Of the three, one failed to start, but I think that is because of a bad element rather than the weather.
And yes, my grill grates are nasty (dirty with burnt meat, not rust!) and I need to take better care of it. Consider me humbled.
The grill has three burners and a round, side burner for pots. The side burner for pots has a flip up type lid that was frozen shut, so I decided to just put the pot on the regular burner area.
As I watched it cook, I realized two things:
1. Snow and ice were blowing into my chili.
2. I was likely losing a good deal of heat out of the top of the pot that could have been heating my chili.
Those points now established as operational risks (bird pooh might be next or I could run out of propane earlier than I expected!) I sent my youngest in to get a lid for the pot. Unfortunately, he just came back with a larger pot, so his older brother was conscripted to solve the problem for him.
The main grill burner still didn't seem like the best way to heat this pot, so I decided to try to get the side burner going. With a little effort, I pried the cover open. There were some leaves on it that I had to pick out, but I couldn't get at all of them. After two or three attempts, I got the burner going and the spare leaves were no more.
Now that I had the side burner going and a lid for the pot, I moved my chili onto the other burner and really started to make progress.
On the kitchen stove, I can usually get the same can of chili warmed up in about six or seven minutes, so I decided that would be my standard cook time before I sampled it. Unfortunately, as the wind picked up, my burner blew out a couple of times and needed to be restarted. While wanting to conserve propane, I decided to put a little larger flame on it to avoid this. I thought about trying to make some kind of a windscreen, but didn't want to get that involved for this simple project.
My youngest had come back to watch at this point. He's a rather finicky eater as most kids are at that age (he's 5) but the scent of the chili in the cold clear air moved him to exclaim, "That smells really good!"
While it was cooking, I removed the lid a couple of times to sample the chili. Steam rose off it each time I did, so I think that proves the obvious: cooking with a lid on a pot is more efficient than cooking without a lid on a pot.
Finally, the chili was at a sufficient temperature to enjoy. I turned off the burner and brought the chili in. As it cooled on the table, I made sure to turn off the propane and recover the grill with my $5 Walmart tarp. Once I got back inside, I enjoyed the chili with some cranberry juice and Wheat Thins.
While not a significant event in the history of disaster preparedness, we had fun and demonstrated we could prepare a basic meal, without electricity, if we had to. Since most of our emergency foods are canned, and will be more enjoyable warmed, or are dry and will require boiling water to prepare, I think we did a good job.
Next time, I plan on trying to prepare something a little more complex, like boxed pasta with tomato sauce or macaroni and cheese.
Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed doing it!
I picked the name partly in farce and partly in homage to the Marx Brothers movie of the same name. I also picked it to give the kids something ridiculous to remember the experience by.
For you hardcore guys, keep in mind this was done to test our basic survival plan under ideal circumstances (broad daylight, minor wind and precipitation, no emotional stress/pressure...) and to pass time on an otherwise miserable day -- not to prove I can hold out after the New Madrid fault slips and a North Korean armored unit invades north-central Hamilton County.
That said, the goal of Operation Duck Soup was this: to prepare a single can of chili on our backyard grill during a simulated weather emergency!
We started in the family room, where I announced that our electricity had just gone out, their mother was sick and we needed to prepare a meal on the backyard grill.
My youngest and I went out onto the back patio to uncover our standard issue propane grill.
I didn't get the blue tarp onto it until about three hours after the storm started last night, so it had a light coating of ice on it by that time, which was still there once I got the tarp off.
My hope was that I could either manually turn the knobs or easily chip through the thin ice with my Swiss Army knife. If that didn't work, I had pre-prepared a large pot of warm, salty water and was prepared to apply that to the frozen knobs. Don't know if that would have made it better or worse, but it was my initial idea. (feedback is welcome on this point)
Happily, the thin ice on the grill controls broke with just a little pressure from my hand when turning the knobs. At first, the burners wouldn't ignite, but then I realized I hadn't turned the gas nozzle on, so I had to go around to the back of the unit to do that. It still took about three attempts before I got any of the burners going. Of the three, one failed to start, but I think that is because of a bad element rather than the weather.
And yes, my grill grates are nasty (dirty with burnt meat, not rust!) and I need to take better care of it. Consider me humbled.
The grill has three burners and a round, side burner for pots. The side burner for pots has a flip up type lid that was frozen shut, so I decided to just put the pot on the regular burner area.
As I watched it cook, I realized two things:
1. Snow and ice were blowing into my chili.
2. I was likely losing a good deal of heat out of the top of the pot that could have been heating my chili.
Those points now established as operational risks (bird pooh might be next or I could run out of propane earlier than I expected!) I sent my youngest in to get a lid for the pot. Unfortunately, he just came back with a larger pot, so his older brother was conscripted to solve the problem for him.
The main grill burner still didn't seem like the best way to heat this pot, so I decided to try to get the side burner going. With a little effort, I pried the cover open. There were some leaves on it that I had to pick out, but I couldn't get at all of them. After two or three attempts, I got the burner going and the spare leaves were no more.
Now that I had the side burner going and a lid for the pot, I moved my chili onto the other burner and really started to make progress.
On the kitchen stove, I can usually get the same can of chili warmed up in about six or seven minutes, so I decided that would be my standard cook time before I sampled it. Unfortunately, as the wind picked up, my burner blew out a couple of times and needed to be restarted. While wanting to conserve propane, I decided to put a little larger flame on it to avoid this. I thought about trying to make some kind of a windscreen, but didn't want to get that involved for this simple project.
My youngest had come back to watch at this point. He's a rather finicky eater as most kids are at that age (he's 5) but the scent of the chili in the cold clear air moved him to exclaim, "That smells really good!"
While it was cooking, I removed the lid a couple of times to sample the chili. Steam rose off it each time I did, so I think that proves the obvious: cooking with a lid on a pot is more efficient than cooking without a lid on a pot.
Finally, the chili was at a sufficient temperature to enjoy. I turned off the burner and brought the chili in. As it cooled on the table, I made sure to turn off the propane and recover the grill with my $5 Walmart tarp. Once I got back inside, I enjoyed the chili with some cranberry juice and Wheat Thins.
While not a significant event in the history of disaster preparedness, we had fun and demonstrated we could prepare a basic meal, without electricity, if we had to. Since most of our emergency foods are canned, and will be more enjoyable warmed, or are dry and will require boiling water to prepare, I think we did a good job.
Next time, I plan on trying to prepare something a little more complex, like boxed pasta with tomato sauce or macaroni and cheese.
Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed doing it!
