Saturday, 2 March 2013

Port Hedland, The Pilbara, Cyclone Rusty, Sandy Five: cooking, chomping & drinking your way through the weather!


As Cyclone Rusty bore down on Port Hedland and The Pilbara this week, reports came that residents were stocking up on alcohol as well as food.  A bit of a no-no really because if the worst befalls, it could be best to be sober and, besides, alcohol cannot be taken into the cyclone shelters.

I wonder if over there in The West they gave any thought to what they consumed in that boring time waiting for the cyclone to come and to go.

Networkers will recall that the eastern seaboard of the USA experienced Sandy in late October 2012.  A post-storm phenomenon occurred dubbed by the media as "Sandy Five".  Sandy Five is a reference to the poundage put on by New Yorkers as they chomped their way through the cyclone.

Not only did they chomp, they cooked, and they drank.  Read about that experience here.

...on the day of the storm, I obsessively followed food blogs, Twitter and Facebook where my food loving friends reported how they poured themselves into preparing elaborate meals, from boeuf wellington to home made pasta to Brasilianquindin. Even more interesting was to hear about the indulgence in alcoholic drinks, ranging from the obscure mid-nineteenth century cocktails to cheap wine, a phenomenon that was evidenced in the empty shelves at wine and liquor stores across post-Sandy Brooklyn. As the storm descended upon the city, our kitchen counter too became a non-stop food assembly line, churning out new dishes every hour or so. When the winds calmed down and left behind a devastated landscape, interrupted lives and severed power lines, many shared stories of rushing to the fast food chains to eat “fast” and “bad” foods in search of comfort.

In spite of photographs of empty shelves in Port Hedland, somehow this cookfest does not seem to me to relate as well to The Pilbara as to New York.  However, foodie Pilbarans might let me know if I am wrong and they might like to recount their culinary and alcoholic achievements for The Network.  

And, by the way, Pilbarans, what was your Cyclone Rusty weight gain or loss?

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