Apocalypse Eventually

What will you do when the Four Horsemen ride up outside your front door and greet you with the ol' tip of the hat?  Don't think the end isn't coming.  It is.  So make plans. 

My brother and his wife had just finished watching a zombie movie with my wife and I.  Without a trace of sarcasm, irony or satire, my beautiful and charming sister-in-law deadpanned, "So what will we do when the zombies come?"  Wow.  That floored me.  I'd never looked at that question in quite that way before.  Let's examine the philosophical impact of the syntax.  Not "What if . . . ?" but "WHEN!"  This begs a follow-up question: "When the hell ARE they coming?"  Followed quickly by a third, "Is there a frosty adult beverage in the refrigerator?  I could use something to calm my nerves."

So the four of us planned it out.  (You should visit ZombieTools for more ideas.)  We eliminated the obvious scenarios that always lead to trouble in the movies.  Can't stay at home.  Zombies won't care about an alarm system on the door, so we clearly lack the necessary anti-zombie security.  And we can't/won't drive through Denver.  Traffic on I-25 through The Mile High City is bad during a light rain.  I can only imagine the troubles when the walking undead are cleaning overturned vehicles of the owner's brains.  Nope.  We're going to take the back roads to the mountains then south.  South to Canon City.  To some very basic prisons.  Now I know what you're thinking, George Romero's characters very successfully fended off a lasting attack in Dawn of the Dead by hanging out in a shopping mall.  There's one big problem anymore:  How long can you survive on Orange Julius, Cinnabon, and Godiva chocolates?  I think a prison has a number of distinct advantages: food supply, arable land, weaponry, a strong defensible position and snitches to toss to the zombies when we need a distraction.  (Too dark?  A little grim?  Not family reading material?  Well, this is real life, baby!  A zombie catastrophe doesn't care about your feelings.)

Eventually, the zombies will exhaust their own food supply and waste away.  Then we can come out of our fortresses to repopulate the earth.  With criminals.  It will be just like Australia, but without the adorable accent.

In my world, every good end-of-humanity doomsday scenario has an associated cuisine.  For zombies, naturally sweetbreads, brains and organ meats.  2012 should be traditional Mayan.  Global warming, volcanoes, and asteroids?  En flambe and fondue, of course.  Nuclear Holocaust?  There's a lot you can cook in a microwave! 

Remember the movie Alive?  I have a pact like that.  (No, not just the "you're allowed to eat my body if I'm not using it anymore" thing, because I've already made that compact with my wife, or in the event of her passing before me, anyone else.  I mean this from the bottom of my heart: "Eat me.")  I will be the one to slice and dry jerky from your butt and hike over the mountian to find help.  I'm no soccer player, but I do hunt and hiking mountains is a skill I have. 

And if the zombies invade the mountains, too?  Well... 

I wonder how zombies taste?

Tonight for dinner:

Non-Zombie Chicken in Coconut Milk and Lemongrass
3 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Chicken Breast per person (boneless and skinless is good)
a pinch of  Kosher Salt per chicken breast per side
2 cloves of Garlic, minced
half of 1 medium Onion, chopped fine
1 medium-sized node of Ginger, sliced thin
1 tablespoon Red Chili powder (more or less to taste)
1/8 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper powder
1 teaspoon Cinnamon powder
1/2 teaspoon Tumeric powder
4 stalks of Lemongrass (bottom 6 inches, only, lightly beaten to begin to separate the fibers)
1 can of Coconut Milk


Heat the oil in a large skillet.  Salt and saute the chicken until lightly browned on both sides.  Remove chicken from the pan and reduce heat to medium.  Add the garlic, onion and ginger and lightly saute.  Reduce the heat to low (simmer).  Add the spices and stir quickly. 

Return the chicken to the skillet and add the coconut milk.  Simmer for 1/2 hour. 

Serve with long grain rice.