Snowmageddon of 2010 was destined to be a killer. It started in the Pacific just off Mexico, snuck across the border just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, headed east on Interstate 40 and then north along the Inter-coastal Waterway and pretty much did a prolonged “hat dance” on metropolitan Washington, D.C. 24 to 36 inches of snow later, it jumped and gyrated, twisted and spun up the coast to a frozen waste land located a few miles the other side of the last American outpost on the frozen northern frontier, Limestone, Maine.
Mid-day on the first day, the President looked out the window of his up-armored armored, four-wheel drive Chevy Suburban and knew that he needed help. The kid from Chicago knew that Hurricane Katrina had been a terrible disaster and that the only historical American experience worse than Katrina, aside from the Civil War, was the Limply Flaccid Totally Impotent (Not to mention puny) Federal Emergency Response to Hurricane Katrina. It was his nightmare come true that here again, and on his watch, millions of his American peoples and their friends and visitor to his Great County, were truly at risk and completely at the mercy of the elements gone wild.
Though he was rue to say it, he also knew in his heart of hearts that the only Plundering Expedition in American history more capably organized than the Republican contractor dominated Civil War Reconstruction was the incredibly efficient and effective concert of thievery that the descendants of those Republican contractors inflicted on New Orleans, Louisiana, after Katrina.
He had to do something to save the Capitol of the Greatest Nation on Earth, but he needed help.
1,088.5 miles away in New Orleans, a gray haired, gray skinned near toothless old woman of indeterminate ancestry and age who was prone to intense periodic episodes of addiction to “Redman Gold” chewing tobacco, was gearing up for the New Orleans Mardi Gras Vice Cop Training Institute. This Pilgrimage is that time each year when fallen Street Cops from all over the world who have given up on themselves and their careers flock to New Orleans and submerse themselves in drunken debauchery and other professional vice related social studies to prepare themselves for careers as police detectives.
This was truly a busy time of year. She had expanded her indigenous peoples development program to include recidivist drunks, mostly retired Chiefs of Police (COPS), and was hopeful that they could someday take over the institute. She had just completed an hour of instruction on “Soap, what it is and how to use it” when the phone rang.
“Big Mama?”
She recognized the voice, “Yes, Mr. President?”
“Your country needs you. Snowmageddon has paralyzed the Capitol region. Our American peoples are in danger of freezing or starving to death in their homes. Valiant Street Cops are collapsing in snowdrifts endeavoring to get food to the starving or to guide them to shelters of warmth,” the President paused, “Big Mama, your country needs you, and I need help.”
“Now, now, Mr. President, you’ll be okay and our country will be fine, too.” Big Mama gave the President a few instructions, made a few calls and a well-oiled logistics machine kicked into action. Shortly there after, Big Mama was driven to a nearby Louisiana National Guard Armory where she was hooked up to a Fulton Surface to Air Recovery (STAR) system, recovered by a passing C-130 Combat Talon and flown to Washington, D.C. (This technique and device was made famous in one of the worst John Wayne movies of all time, the “Green Berets.” In this technique, a rope is tied to the person to be recovered, the other end is tied to a weather balloon, and the weather balloon rises in the air until the aircraft flies into it and hooks it, lifting the recovered person off the ground and flying away with them in tow.) A few minutes before the aircraft arrived on target over D.C., Big Mama got into a winter freefall suit, put on a parachute snapped a chainsaw to one side of her harness and a five gallon can of gas to the other side. The rear ramp was opened and when the light turned green, she strolled down the ramp and exited the aircraft about 10,000 feet above ground. A minute later, she was standing in the Ellipse south in the President’s Park South which is just south of the White House and shortly after that she was dragging downed trees from the nearby neighborhoods and cutting them into firewood. She also rescued several heroic streetcops who were near freezing to death while attempting to rescue local Americans at risk.
Elsewhere in America, Air National Guard units sprang into action at the Presidents call for service to country. Air National Guard C-17’s(pronounced “Cee seventeens”) and C-130’s (pronounced “Cee one thirties”) were vectored to specific landing strips for specific missions all across the country. In Scotland, Texas, a Patriotic Texas cattleman loaded hundreds of head of Hereford cattle, a true American breed of cattle and the National Cow of Texas, onto cattle trucks and they were driven to a transportable, vehicle mounted slaughter house (a slaughter house on a trailer) near Wichita Falls, Texas, where they were slaughtered and loaded into a C-17 for subsequent transport to the Capitol. Onions and carrots from Brawley, California and still more vegetables the Great San Joaquin Valley were loaded into C-1t’s for the Great Snowmageddon Airlift. Still other C-130’s and C-17’s were vectored to Florida and loaded to the max with fruit and vegetables. They all proceeded to quaint little air force base located just south of a picturesque rural Maryland ghetto called Suitland. There the loads were off loaded and daring National Guard helicopter pilots and crews braved inclement weather to deliver their precious cargo to the Ellipse in President’s Park South, just south of the White House.
At the same time all of this was going on, and in the cover of this darkness, cargo trucks that looked suspiciously like antique Louisiana Army National Guard “deuce and a half’s” (decades old tried and true utilities vehicles that the regular Army threw away after Viet Nam because the newer cargo vehicles produced by Republican owned corporations cost more and were more expensive to maintain), backed into an even darker warehouse in Beau Bridge, Louisiana, only to depart a short while later with obviously heavy loads. The same trucks were later observed being driven into C-17 cargo bays and inquiring reporters the world over suspect that these same vehicles were later seen being driven off C-17’s at Friendship National Airport, and driven across the 14th Street Bridge into D.C. where they delivered dozens of 70 gallon gumbo pots to an Old Woman in President’s Park South.
Within a day, Big Mama’s President’s Park South Soup Kitchen was up and running and National Guardsmen from across America were providing transportation to local residents from their homes to the kitchen where they were provided nutritional sustenance in the form of Big Mama’s All American Beef Stew.
A week or so later, life had pretty much returned to normal. Snowmageddon had provided something for everyone. Turns out a few of the National Guardsmen had shared the powdered hot chocolate and tiny receptacles of Tabasco Hot Sauce that came in their “Meals Ready to Eat” (MRE’s) with some of the local children, instead of throwing it in the trash, and Congress was investigating this flagrant violation of Appropriations Law. It was plain to see, Congress had appropriated these funds to feed troops and provide for America’s defense, and not to entertain frozen children in the Nation’s Capitol. Then too were the questions concerning the appropriation of fallen trees by Big Mama to cook the soup and the cost of repairing the turf in President’s Park South and the authority of the President to nationalize National Guard assets to respond to this local emergency. A Senate Committee opened an investigation as to why the Environment Protection Agency didn’t investigate allegations of air pollution from the wood fires that Big Mama built to cook the stew. The identity of the mysterious provider of the dozens of 90 gallon soup pots became an issue after the President answered “I don’t know” in response to a reporter’s question. Who was this mysterious philanthropist? Was he really a philanthropist? And then, the speculation generated speculation. If they don’t know the identity of the unknown philanthropist, how do they know the philanthropist is a man? How do they know that he is a man, singular and not men, plural? What is he, she or they after? Do/does he/she/they have workman’s compensation for the warehousemen who loaded the heavy cast iron pots on the trucks? If the warehousemen were injured during this work, is the federal government liable? Why are there no women in “warehousemen?” Clearly, “that man” has been near criminally negligent in the performance of his duties.
Even though cynics see no good in this post Snowmageddon exercise in American democracy, there was in fact a positive outcome. The eloquence and volume of the ensuing Congressional bombast and prattle gave the news media something to peddle and undoubted funded a lot of otherwise empty airtime and inkless newspaper print and this increase in productivity provided needed stimulation to the scandal sector of the economy.
Finally yet importantly, the American Peoples living in the Capitol had been saved from certain death by Snowmageddon and Big Mama had returned to New Orleans where she was impressed at the way her trainees had carried on without her. Some had even bathed and used soap in her absence.
Big Mama shared the secret of the recipe with me and you too can experience this taste-a-licious delight. The recipe and procedure are outlined below.
Substitutions and deviations are permitted.
Big Mama’s World Famous All Over Town All American Beef Stew
(Makes a little over 3 gallons)
2 pounds beef short ribs 2 pounds beef neck bone Potatoes (equal volume to beef) 1 x baseball size Spanish onion (cubed) 2 or 3 Ancho chilies (cut into cubes 2 x medium carrot (6 to 8 inches, cut into small lengths) 8 x baseball sized tomatoes (cut them into chunks) ½ cup of baby green lima beans A handful of long green beans (cut into 2 inch lengths) Leaves and immature stalks from a head of celery plus 2 or 3 mature stalks (cut them up into small lengths) 8 oz porto bello mushrooms cut in half 2 ears of corn sliced into ½ inch lengths 12 finger size okra pods (use your judgment, these are for thickening. Some folks like the flavor, some don’t) 12 teeth of garlic ½ cup cooked barley Fresh parsley Dried Basel Dried Thyme Rubbed Sage Dried oregano Salt Whole or ground Black pepper Cooking oil (olive oil, corn oil, lard, pork or beef roast drippings) One bottle of California Red (Sweet Red, Italian Red, etc) One 8 oz fruit jar
The Procedure
1. Pour 8 ounces of the California Red into the fruit jar and drink it. 2. Brown the meat in a 3 gallon pot in about ¼ cup of oil 3. Cut up the onion and Ancho chili and brown with the meat 4. Toss in half of the garlic, a palm full of salt and smaller amounts of basel and thyme plus a ½ tablespoon of sage and black pepper and all of the chopped up celery leaves. 5. Cover with water and let simmer 30 minutes 6. Have another fruit jar of California Red. 7. Peel and cut the carrots into half inch lengths and potatoes into thumb size chunks and toss them in. 8. Cut up the tomatoes and toss them in. 9. Let simmer about 30 minutes 10. Have another fruit jar of California Red. 11. Toss in everything that is left, including the garlic but not the Okra. (Chop up the parsley, and slice the corn into little1/2 inch cylinders first.) 12. Cover with water. 13. Let simmer about 30 minutes or until the carrots and potatoes are almost “al dente.” 14. Toss in the okra. Okra isn’t added until the very end because overcooked okra has a tendency to look like green snot. 15. Have another fruit jar of California Red and let simmer 30 minutes. 16. Taste it. 17. Add whatever spices it needs (probably salt). 18. Cook 30 minutes to an hour longer. Longer if you think it needs it. 19. Serve with hot bread, freshly ground chili de arbol, corn tortillas and what remains of the California Red.
I recommend you eat this outside in heavy snow.
Bon appetite.