June 6, 2006

Tornado warning.

The first tornado warning of the season. The sirens are going now, joined at the end by thunder. I used to gather the whole family together and go down to the basement. But now, I just hang out close to the basement door.

Here's the '05 first-tornado-warning-of-the-year post. It was March 30th. Interesting. Why so late this year? Global warming? Global cooling?

Here 's the first mention ever on this blog of a tornado, "Tagliatelle Bolognese ... with tornado":
I don't spend much time cooking, and I normally go to great lengths to avoid setting foot in a grocery store, but when I saw [a recipe] the NYT Magazine today, I tore out the page, got in my car, drove to the store, bought all the ingredients on the list, drove home, and immediately put together the meat sauce. As I was checking out with the ingredients and some extra bottles of red wine, the young man behind me in line said, "I want go to your party." So now the sauce is almost done -- it needs to cook for 3 hours -- and the pasta water is coming to a boil. If there is one food I love it's Bolognese meat sauce. For many years, I've used the recipe in in this book. I'm not really looking to replace that fine, fine recipe, but ... YIKES!! The tornado warning just went off!!! Ah, don't worry about me .... I'm well positioned near my basement door and ready to seek shelter if I see some significant wind activity from this vantage point. I'm not going to the basement yet though. Because I'm still hungry.... and I fully intend to eat some pasta if it's the last thing I do.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. Waiting out the tornado. Wish I had some Bolognese sauce on the stove.

14 comments:

tiggeril said...

That was the nice thing about moving to Chicago from the boonies. Getting flung around by a tornado is much less likely. The closest call I ever had growing up was when I was driving home one day in high school and spotted a funnel cloud over a neighboring field. I don't I've ever driven so fast.

Maxine Weiss said...

Ewww. I don't like mama's meat sauce. The meat interferes with the flavors of the tomato and garlic....I need to focus on one or two ingredients.....putting meat, or cheese in a sauce divides my attention.

I also wouldn't use red wine INMHO. But I would use white wine, surprisingly, or sherry....but not a lot.

I like an plain marinara sauce with extra garlic and some onions. Leave out the meat. Sometimes I put spicy red peppers.

Peace, Maxine

Ann Althouse said...

I've heard the sirens so many times over the years. I'm never scared. I just wonder, should I be scared? The sirens are going off again, renewing the warning... Nothing to do, really...

sonicfrog said...

I grew up in Dallas. The sound of that siren still gives me goose-bumps. Not scared goose-bumps, just goose-bumps. I was the kid who climbed on the roof to try and spot the 'nado. Smart!

Now living in California we have to deal with earthquakes. I'll take an eathquake over tornados any day. As long as nothing falls on you head, like your house or the freeway, you'll be just fine. It feels like a really cool rollercoaster ride. And you don't have to pay an $80 admission fee or waite in line for hours on end.

Ricardo said...

Here's your chance. Grab that pile of exam papers, and if you see the tornado funnel ....

Of course, this is a completely different dimension than tossing them down the stairwell, and you'd have to come up with all new standards: e.g. an A for making it to California, a B for the Rockies, etc.

MadisonMan said...

I looked at the radar for the first siren -- storm south of Mt. Horeb. The storm for the second siren was near Columbus.

Dane County is too big.

Beth said...

I'm envying the detachment and humor of this discussion. Normally, about this time of year I'd be looking forward to a little tropical weather. Instead, I feel guilty recalling the rush of pleasure and fear when crossing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and watching a little group of tornados skirt over the surface nearby, or sitting on my porch in the wee hours last summer, watching a minor, level one hurricane move over the city.

sonicfrog said...

Oh, we do get dust devils by the thousands here in Fresno, but I guess they don't count.

Ooops, Maybe. Does waite have an "e" on the end???

Maxine Weiss said...

I like a more mild tomato sauce. I don't use red wine in anything. Too heavy.

I use shallots, onions, extra garlic, dash of white wine, stewed tomatoes with juice, just a pinch of olive oil, and sometimes a little vegetable stock if I need more liquid.....and that's my pasta sauce!

Peace, Maxine

X said...

I'm a total addict of those weathersploitation shows that they have on the Weather Channel late nights, and the whole idea of having tornado warnings be a routine occurrence is pretty exotic to me. I was fortunately spared any serious disasters when I lived in New Orleans and Japan (although we had a spate of almost weekly 3.0-4.0 earthquakes for a while there, and I missed the big one by a couple of years). Here in Philly, we don't even really have all that many muggings, just the crazy lady across the street screaming at people. I learned pretty quick to hit the basement whenever that starts up, though.

Slszuj, Jaroslav (1877-1951): Devised the system for the classification of crazy-neighbor related emergencies that bears his name.

Unknown said...

Yeah, was it good? Give us the better of the two recipes!

Ann Althouse said...

The better recipe is the one in the Classic Italian Cookbook (linked in the post). I've made it many times. It's my favorite thing to cook. I love it. It's better than any meat sauce I've ever gotten in a restaurant.

Unknown said...

Here's a link, if it's the same one.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2002983420_bolognese10.html

Ann Althouse said...

Yeah, thanks.

As I say, I've always used red instead of white wine.