Note: I wrote this post shortly after New Year’s. And then couldn’t decide when to post it, or if I should post it, and… now it’s two months late and I’m posting it anyways. Yeah… I’m an awesome blogger like that. Enjoy!

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Happy New Year!

I hope 2014 started out with a little less excitement for you than it did for me!

Ever since starting Sushi Day back in 2006, I’ve gotten the responsibility for making sushi for my family’s New Year’s celebration every year.

On top of that, for the last three years since we mentioned it in my Miso Hungry Podcast, I’ve also started making the kuromame every year (we used to just have canned kuromame).

Making all that has never been a problem. Until now. (DUN DUN DUN!)

I started the kuromame on time – started soaking it two nights before New Year’s Day, then simmered it all day on New Year’s Eve. Buuuut… it seems I had the heat turned too low, because the beans were crunchy (crunchy!!!) after eight hours of simmering. GAH.

“Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just leave it on low overnight, and if it’s still not ready, I’ll cook it on high all morning while I’m making the sushi.” It was a totally solid plan.

… that is, until I noticed the power light on my laptop charger dimming, then brightening, then dimming again around 2:30am.

“Uh… am I using too much power?” Not that that makes any sense at all, but it was 2:30am. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.

I ran out to the kitchen, and turned off our electric stove. Everything seemed fine (although for some reason our apartment seemed a tad bit dimmer than usual), so I tiptoed back to bed, trying not to wake Son.

A few minutes later, the power cut out entirely.

This time I did wake up Son, and made him go check outside. All the neighborhood lights were out. Great.

As we were falling back asleep, the sound of sirens cut through the air. “I wonder what that could be…?”

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7am. The alarm on my phone is blaring. Sushi time!

Except… not. We have power, but only just barely. Not enough for the rice cooker to work, and no rice means no sushi! (And remember the part where we have an electric stove? Yeah, no way to cook rice the old-fashioned way, either.)

Crap. Crappity crap crap.

I stepped outside to run to Starbucks (which… um… was closed due to power outage. *facepalm*) and ran into one of my neighbors. “Do you have power?” “Just a little.” “Any idea what happened?”

Turns out a drunk driver was playing chicken with a power pole at 2:30am, and they both lost. -_-

Okay. Don’t freak out.

At a loss for what to do, I called my dad to see if I could try to bring everything over and make all the sushi at his house. (Which, by the way, is very difficult to do when the local cell towers are ALSO without power. Oy vey.) And then I realized that the car was in the garage… and I can’t get into the garage…

Called my mom. She suggested having Grandma cook some rice, and heading out there a few hours earlier than we had all planned to go. Okay. That should work. I woke Son, to tell him the plan and get him ready to go…

AND THEN THE POWER CAME BACK ON.

*happy dance*

Once I was sure the power was going to stay on, I started the rice, over-caffinated myself, and got the kuromame cooking again.

Two hours and 27 rolls of sushi, a successfully-cooked pot of kuromame, and a bowl of New Year’s ozoni later, we were ready to go. Right on time!

Moral of the story? Don’t drink and drive! (And maybe buy a backup generator for important cooking days… 😉 )