Are there any two words in English more glorious when used together than “snowed” and “in”? Especially when they refer to being snowed in in Seattle. There are no window-covering drifts, no power lines are downed, no grocery stores are padlocked. Instead, there’s all the fun associated with being snowed in — stocking up, staying off the roads, calling people in other parts of the country to compare notes, watching DVDs in the middle of the day, playing rummy.
And then there are the special foods. Although a short walk to the grocery store , clad in sturdy boots, would supply us with every kind of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, we prefer to eat something from our own pantry and larder. What better than Jamie Oliver’s Welsh Rarebit with Attitude? Do you know about Welsh rarebit (pronounced rabbit)? It’s cheese sauce on toast, all the way from the meanest Cheez Whiz version to a classic beer & cheddar to sauce Mornay and beyond.
Jamie’s version uses eggs, crème fraîche (or a mixture of sweet and sour cream), mustard powder, salt, and pepper. He calls for a cheddar, but I have something even better, wasabi cheddar. Jamie spreads the bread with home-made chile chutney; I use my spicy pepper compote (although I wish I had chopped it up smaller before putting it on the toast). Serve with Worcestershire sauce. No joke, keep a bottle of Worcestershire sauce at the back of a shelf, waiting patiently for you to make Welsh rarebit. It’s just the thing.
MB: Now we here on the East Coast are actually pretty close to snowed in. I think we got over 12 inches of snow in the last 72 hours, but I could be off (in either direction) by a couple of inches.
There was the usual mad dash to the grocery store before the storm hit, where I stocked up on a completely random supply of groceries to make all kinds of snow day foods. Inevitably the list I go with and what I come home with are drastically different. I came home with the makings for broccoli raab and sausage and ended up making scrambled eggs. Ah well.
For this time of year this weather is unusual for us, but also so very appreciated. There are very few things that better put you in the Christmas spirit than Mother Nature dumping a foot of snow. This, my friends, is why I love the East Coast, why I don’t live within 100 miles of the equator (in spite of all the really good reasons to do so) … I don’t ever want to live away from snow.
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