I can cook on a camp stove.

Here’s proof: my dinner tonight. A can of gumbo soup.

This camp stove was purchased with a gift card to Cabela’s that my parents gave us for Christmas one year. The Big Blackout of August 2003, which caused us to lose power for 10 hours, inspired my selections: a camping lantern that works on D sized batteries, a camp stove, a propane cell for the camp stove, a griddle for the camp stove and cooking pots for the camp stove.

The lantern has seen quite a bit of use. The camp stove was always in reach, but never needed to be pulled out. When we were camping or tailgating, other people brought their cooking equipment

I got the stove out tonight and decided to start with something easy: a can of soup. My husband is familiar with cooking on a propane grill, but he’s working tonight. Our handy man neighbor helped make sure I got it set up right. I set up the stove on a cement sidewalk, and got dinner going.

By the way, our neighborhood power came back on at 8 p.m. tonight. It’s too late to save much food from the refrigerator or freezer – it’s been nearly 48 hours. It’s probably about $50 to $60 worth of food that I had to pitch. Some of it could have been saved if we had power even 12 hours ago. (We don’t have a separate freezer or refrigerator for overflow. Those of you who keep separate freezers could easily be storing $200 or more worth of food.)

On the possibility that the electric is still iffy or could overload, I’m not turning on anything that is not immediately necessary for a little bit.

I’ll leave the clock re-setting chores to my husband, the techie geek.