snOMG’26 Take Two: Catering a snow day

By Jon Show. Am I a chef? No. Do I feed my family at least one if not two or three meals a day? Yes I do.

I’m also the parent of two teenagers, which means I spent the better part of the last 17-plus years catering every snowstorm in the books. I like to throw a good snow day.

I can overengineer pretty much anything, so it’s no surprise that I apply the same method of madness to a snow day. Catering back-to-back snow weekends has never been done before so I had to come up with a new menu this weekend.

Here are some food tips if you’re looking to take your #SnoMG2026 experience to the next level.

Chili + dogs

Chili is an easy one. Almost cliché, if you will. But it’s easy and it works, and between the acidity of the tomatoes and the added salt it can sit on the stove all day without going bad. Plus it’s delicious as long as you have a good recipe. I’d share mine but I think a chili recipe is like underwear. I like mine, you like yours, and that doesn’t mean we should share ours with others.

Bonus menu item: you can make chili dogs with the leftovers. I like to pulse my leftover chili in a food processor to break down the chunks. A good chili sauce should blend into the dog, not be the star of the show.

As for my preferred brand of dog? I like mystery meat packaged in quantities of eight but the Mother of Dragons buys some organic brand made from free-range animals that comes in the unfathomable quantity of five so we have three leftover buns.

You’re in North Carolina so there’s only one way to take your dog and that’s all the way—chili, slaw, mustard, and onions. Don’t tell anyone but I leave off the onions.

The Blonde Bomber takes hers with chili and cheese because she thinks she isn’t Southern despite being born and raised here.

Grilled steaks

Ten years ago we had a snowstorm when our kids were single-digit ages, which meant I spent every waking moment somewhere on a sledding hill.

On day two, the snow froze so I tied a sled to my mountain bike and towed Future Man around the neighborhood trying to avoid slamming him into mailboxes on tight turns. I failed on multiple occasions.

At the end of the night, exhausted and without any dinner on the stove, we stopped at the driveway of my neighbor who was throwing steaks on a grate over a fire pit.

Steak is good. Steak on an open fire is next level, and snow days are all about taking it to the next level. If you have a Solo Stove just take the grate off your grill and toss it on top.

It takes longer than you’d expect to cook on an open fire so don’t fret if you slice into a raw steak. One year I undercooked a London broil so I cut it into slices, fed the flames, and tossed them back on the fire for thirty seconds with a little flaky salt and a squeeze of lemon. Yes, lemon. Best steak I’ve ever had in my life.

Smoked chicken

The beauty of snow days is that all rules go out the window, like plates and silverware.

Smoke your chicken however you like. Any old rub will do and you can spatchcock it, do a beer can chicken, or any other style you like. If you don’t have a smoker you can flip your gas grill’s flavor bars upside down, load them with wood chips, and smoke away.

The ingestion method is the most important part of this recipe. It has to be in the road or in the garage, on a card table, presented as a full bird, no utensils, with your favorite dipping sauce so the kids can tear out the meat and eat like cave people.

Dessert

Don’t come at me with s’mores. S’mores are for rookies.

The Mother of Dragons grew up in a few different places but her family ultimately settled in Utah in the 1900s. Sorry, I meant 1990s.

Her contribution to snow days is something she calls snow cream and it requires a bit of advance planning if you’re going to do it correctly.

First, you have to put a sheet pan outside prior to the storm so it collects clean snow. This was a modification added a few years ago when I found the Blonde Bomber eating snow she harvested off the driveway.

When the kids are ready to eat it, you pour a little vanilla creamer and stir, little more and stir, until it reaches your desired consistency and flavor. It’s a delicate art. If you pour in too much it turns into watered-down creamer. If you don’t use enough it tastes like snow that smells like ice cream.

Top with sprinkles and you’re good to go.

Got any favorite snow day meals? Drop them in the comments below.