I have this book by Sharon Astyk which tells both how to make kimchi (a spicy Korean fermented cabbage--I swear to you it's delicious, in spite of this description) and kimchi tofu soup. I know what you're thinking: fermented cabbage and tofu soup? And yet, I promise, it's the most wonderful soup you've ever had, if you're sick. I used storebought kimchi (it's usually in that section of the produce area where they have fancy refrigerated salad dressing and pre-chopped apples), a can of canned chicken, carrots instead of mushrooms, and onions instead of scallions. It was. So. Good.
We are, if you haven't figured it out, sorta sick here today. That is, we all have colds that are annoying enough to make us whiny and lethargic, but not enough to make us lay on the couch so Mama could lay in the recliner and have a break. It's fun.
I may have mentioned her before, but I really like Astyk's writing. She's funny, and her stuff is very useful even if you don't pursue it for the same reasons she does. I'm not at all sure, for instance, like she is, that we're heading either for human-caused global warming or for peak oil. But I do think that anyone who might lose their job, lose electricity, find the cost of heating their house too expensive, need to save money on food, become trapped in their house for a few days by an ice storm, or any number of other scenarios will want to look at the two books by Astyk that I own:
Independence Days
and Making Home
They're intensely practical, and mostly "theory of anyway" stuff. I.e., even if the zombies do not come later this week, what are some things that might be good to do anyway? (For instance: we like tomatoes. We make pizza, spaghetti, and chili pretty regularly. So I keep canned tomatoes on hand. I don't do that because I'm going to eat/throw them at zombies in the event of an apocalypse, but because I don't like having to buy tomatoes every week.)
Some of the items in the books are useful to know, even if you're not going to pursue them at the moment--like the composting toilet. Others should probably be pursued right now if you can afford it--like adding insulation to your house or considering one of these really interesting heat stoves. (Alas, the rocket stove mass heater won't work in our house. I am 98% sure it would be too heavy for our floor, and I think the fire inspector would have a stroke if we told him we'd built it ourselves. But if you're building a cabin, it makes a lot more sense than a wood stove.) Still other items--like the list of what to put in your pantry *right now* if things start to head south--should be read and understood by everyone.
Incidentally, one of the "Theory of Anyway" reasons to have a pantry is a day like the one I'm having today: I realized last night, when the Husband was stuck working late at a mine 1 1/2 hours away, that the kids and I were getting sick. Buddy always gets sicker faster than everybody else, and he was a puddle of feverish snot by bedtime. There was no way I was going to take the kids out into the chilly darkness by myself and drive the half hour into town, hoping that CVS would still be open and not too full of meth addicts, and buy sick-care supplies.
Even when I lived in town, in Texas where it wasn't so chilly, I wouldn't want to haul sick kids through the store. So it was reassuring to bundle everyone into their flannel jammies and reflect on what we had available to us this morning, because it's always available:
Canned chicken (for soup)
"Cold Care for Kids" herbal tea (I water it down/mix it with juice, it's better for them than pop and very mild)
Vitamin C gummies
Frozen concentrated OJ
Plenty of fleece blankets
Hankies
Elderberry cough syrup (the only kind, IMHO, that's safe for kids under 12 - you can buy it, or it's simple enough to make your own if you have an elder bush)
The makings for homemade pedialyte
And, you know, enough in the pantry for several meals that don't require too much thought, since thought is not my strong point when my ears are stuffed up.
None of these things are strange, weird, survivalist* crap. They're just stuff we like having, and since I can accurately predict that we will get colds at some point future, I try to have it on hand before winter. Your list would likely be different, but why not make one? If you're not sick or without electricity at the moment, trust me, it's easier to stock up now.
Enjoy the last few warmish days, if you've got them where you live, and tuck aside the things you might want before winter. I can testify to the value of a few jars of kimchi.
Cheers,
Breanna
*(Am I a "prepper"? Well, no. I pretty well think that if we are struck with an EMP or some other kind of nuclear disaster, we're all more or less hosed anyway, so I don't worry too much about that. If we're hit with a pandemic, duct-taping tarps over the window and sheltering-in-place isn't going to help much, so I don't worry too much about that. I find other scenarios even less likely, and I find that people who write doomer thrillers are generally not very good writers, not very good judges of how people actually behave, and not very good students of history.
The problem with extrapolating the future from novels is that no one would read a novel about becoming unemployed, cold, and with a low-grade UTI, having to wear crappy second-hand tennis shoes, and eating lentils a lot until you move in with your cousins and start working for them as a gardener/housekeeper. Novels require a central conflict, and in doomer thrillers it's a lot easier to produce a conflict by having sudden collapse and a roaming gang of Zombie Mutant Bikers come tearing through Our Hero's homestead. So don't mistake the requirements of storytelling for sober scenario analysis.)
We are, if you haven't figured it out, sorta sick here today. That is, we all have colds that are annoying enough to make us whiny and lethargic, but not enough to make us lay on the couch so Mama could lay in the recliner and have a break. It's fun.
I may have mentioned her before, but I really like Astyk's writing. She's funny, and her stuff is very useful even if you don't pursue it for the same reasons she does. I'm not at all sure, for instance, like she is, that we're heading either for human-caused global warming or for peak oil. But I do think that anyone who might lose their job, lose electricity, find the cost of heating their house too expensive, need to save money on food, become trapped in their house for a few days by an ice storm, or any number of other scenarios will want to look at the two books by Astyk that I own:
Independence Days
and Making Home
They're intensely practical, and mostly "theory of anyway" stuff. I.e., even if the zombies do not come later this week, what are some things that might be good to do anyway? (For instance: we like tomatoes. We make pizza, spaghetti, and chili pretty regularly. So I keep canned tomatoes on hand. I don't do that because I'm going to eat/throw them at zombies in the event of an apocalypse, but because I don't like having to buy tomatoes every week.)
Some of the items in the books are useful to know, even if you're not going to pursue them at the moment--like the composting toilet. Others should probably be pursued right now if you can afford it--like adding insulation to your house or considering one of these really interesting heat stoves. (Alas, the rocket stove mass heater won't work in our house. I am 98% sure it would be too heavy for our floor, and I think the fire inspector would have a stroke if we told him we'd built it ourselves. But if you're building a cabin, it makes a lot more sense than a wood stove.) Still other items--like the list of what to put in your pantry *right now* if things start to head south--should be read and understood by everyone.
Incidentally, one of the "Theory of Anyway" reasons to have a pantry is a day like the one I'm having today: I realized last night, when the Husband was stuck working late at a mine 1 1/2 hours away, that the kids and I were getting sick. Buddy always gets sicker faster than everybody else, and he was a puddle of feverish snot by bedtime. There was no way I was going to take the kids out into the chilly darkness by myself and drive the half hour into town, hoping that CVS would still be open and not too full of meth addicts, and buy sick-care supplies.
Even when I lived in town, in Texas where it wasn't so chilly, I wouldn't want to haul sick kids through the store. So it was reassuring to bundle everyone into their flannel jammies and reflect on what we had available to us this morning, because it's always available:
Canned chicken (for soup)
"Cold Care for Kids" herbal tea (I water it down/mix it with juice, it's better for them than pop and very mild)
Vitamin C gummies
Frozen concentrated OJ
Plenty of fleece blankets
Hankies
Elderberry cough syrup (the only kind, IMHO, that's safe for kids under 12 - you can buy it, or it's simple enough to make your own if you have an elder bush)
The makings for homemade pedialyte
And, you know, enough in the pantry for several meals that don't require too much thought, since thought is not my strong point when my ears are stuffed up.
None of these things are strange, weird, survivalist* crap. They're just stuff we like having, and since I can accurately predict that we will get colds at some point future, I try to have it on hand before winter. Your list would likely be different, but why not make one? If you're not sick or without electricity at the moment, trust me, it's easier to stock up now.
Enjoy the last few warmish days, if you've got them where you live, and tuck aside the things you might want before winter. I can testify to the value of a few jars of kimchi.
Cheers,
Breanna
*(Am I a "prepper"? Well, no. I pretty well think that if we are struck with an EMP or some other kind of nuclear disaster, we're all more or less hosed anyway, so I don't worry too much about that. If we're hit with a pandemic, duct-taping tarps over the window and sheltering-in-place isn't going to help much, so I don't worry too much about that. I find other scenarios even less likely, and I find that people who write doomer thrillers are generally not very good writers, not very good judges of how people actually behave, and not very good students of history.
The problem with extrapolating the future from novels is that no one would read a novel about becoming unemployed, cold, and with a low-grade UTI, having to wear crappy second-hand tennis shoes, and eating lentils a lot until you move in with your cousins and start working for them as a gardener/housekeeper. Novels require a central conflict, and in doomer thrillers it's a lot easier to produce a conflict by having sudden collapse and a roaming gang of Zombie Mutant Bikers come tearing through Our Hero's homestead. So don't mistake the requirements of storytelling for sober scenario analysis.)
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