Snowmageddon '11

Here in Chicago we are starting Snowmageddon - the worst blizzard in at least a decade. And the city is shutting down. My facebook news feed was littered with "work was canceled" and generic "blizzard!" statuses. And then there were the food statuses! Apparently most of the city went to the grocery store to stock up the past two days. I've heard reports from two different people that the stores were out of bananas. Really? I completely understand milk and bread, but bananas? As one of my co-workers pointed out, they are really only good for two days... But being lactose intolerant finally had a "win!" moment - rice milk has a long shelf life (I've seen up to nine months) unopened. No need for me to brave long grocery store lines since I buy plenty in advance! And bread? It's in the freezer! I still have leftover slices from Battle of the Breads.

For me, leaving work early and needing to go straight home meant that I had time to cook a proper dinner. I have been eying the pumpkin dumplings with bacon and radicchio in Cooking for Isaiah for quite some time. I bought my pumpkin around Halloween and finally bought radicchio over the weekend. And bacon? There's always some in my fridge. The recipe is fairly easy and Silvana does a great job laying out the steps since a pot and a pan are going simultaneously. My failure to mise en plas the radicchio came back to bite me since I had my back turned from my bacon and onion pan for half a minute too long and I burned my beautifully diced onion. (I'm getting the hang of dicing onions now - major thanks to Jamie Oliver!) This was a great dish and the dumplings were like softer, more flavorful gnocchi.And if you can see the street from the window, you'll notice the empty roads. I live along a major road in Chicago and everything is empty. I barely made it home because of the strong winds (had to walk through an alley and then before crossing the street I needed to hug a street light so I wouldn't blow into traffic!) If tomorrow's weather is anything like today's, I'll be spending my evening baking!