Hurricane Isaac Bento (421)

Hello everyone! I survived Hurricane Isaac, with a little help from the bento pictured above.  As I prepared for Isaac, I began to think about what I would do if I lost power.  With hurricanes, you never know exactly where they are going to land until they do.  While preparing, you have to think what to do in the event of a power outage, whether that be for 1 day or 1 month depending on the severity of the storm.

As I prepared, I began to realize that all my bento packing over the years has given me a skill set to at least have food available for the first day of power outage.  I cooked and packed a bento that could survive without refrigeration for a few hours.  The same sort of bento I might pack on a work day where I don’t plan to reheat my food.  The bento above has roasted broccoli, seasoned chicken bites, and a boxed spaghetti mix.  I packed two tiers of my monbento box (review and giveaway coming Wednesday!) with the same ingredients.  Placing the airtight lids on the two tiers, I placed these bentos in my refrigerator on Tuesday morning, not planning to eat them until the electricity went out.  I lost electricity around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, about the same time I’m getting ready for work.  When the electricity went out, I grabbed both tiers out of the fridge quickly.  One tier went into the freezer.  The other tier went into a thermal lunch bag with an ice pack.

About an hour before lunch, I removed this bento from my lunch bag so that it could come to room temperature and not be too cold.  It was perfect!  I took the other tier out the freezer about 2 hours ahead of time.  While not a perfect solution for a long term power outage, it was just the right plan for a 24-hour power outage.

High Waters from Hurricane Isaac

Before I end today’s post, I want to extend thank you to everyone who contacted me and wished me well through the storm. As an update, Baton Rouge was very lucky. We did not have the widespread damage predicted. Isaac did not come as far west as projected, saving Baton Rouge from the particularly destructive eastern quadrant rain bands. However, parishes to the east, and parts of Mississippi weren’t so lucky. I spent part of Friday riding through the parish in which I work, trying to get through areas of high water, to check on the library’s branches. Luckily all were okay, and issues experienced was less than minimal. My thoughts go out to those that fared much worse from Hurricane Isaac.