My wife used to work in the bakery at the local Whole Foods. A regular question at the end of the day shift was, “Hey, has anyone remembered to feed the bitch today?”
Also, a +1 for the King Arthur Flour sandwich bread recipe. That’s what we’ve been using and it’s darned tasty. Also pretty simple, so it’s got that going for it.
For sourdough, we’re using a Peter Reinhart recipe and so far so good. Specifically, the one from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I gather he’s tweaked it since then, but that one’s working nicely for us (so far!). We’ll be making bread from it this weekend, so we’ll know for sure soon.
A sourdough starter is a culture of live yeast and bacteria. It needs food (more flour and water) every day to continue to produce. It’s kinda like the old “The Blob” movie, but with less red jello.
I was at Costco last night and on a whim decided to get some emergency food supplies. I’m not talking about enough food to survive months in case of nuclear war, but I do live on the Ring of Fire, earthquakes happen here, Cascadia is overdue for a big one, etc.
Costco had two types. ReadyWise for $59.99, and Mountain House Adventure Kit for $64.99. The latter has 13 pouches, consisting of breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals.
The ReadyWise is touted as Emergency Food. It’s in a big plastic bucket. Something like 132 servings.
The Mountain Houseis literally the backpacker stuff, ideal for camping or hiking or just storing for an emergency.
Got the ReadyWise, went home, and then looked up some reviews. Yikes. It’s not good. Apparently it’s watery and barely has any taste. Pretty much every review was along the lines of “it’s flavored water.” Worse, of those 132 servings, a solid 1/4 of those comes via sugary orange drink.
Mountain House, though, got amazing reviews. As someone noted, the ReadyWise folks don’t ever actually expect you to eat their food unless it’s an emergency. Whereas Mountain House has to sell to outdoor folks who eat it all the time. So it actually tastes like real food.
So I returned the ReadyWise to Costco tonight and picked up a Mountain House, and then discovered at checkout it’s $15 off! So I got another one.
Feel a little better now in case I lose power and gas for a week.
There’s something amazing about cracking open Mountain House in the cold of a mountain rainstorm after a long day of hiking, and it’s like this amazing mana from hiker’s heaven.
Then making one on a whim sitting in the comforts of home dispels the magic, to say the least.
I did pick up about 10 of the giant “can o’ chicken” emergency Mountain House rations a couple years ago. It’s very salty stuff so almost not suitable for ordinary eating, but it’s rated as shelf stable for 25 years… which is a long time. Where I live though water is going to be as much or more of an issue than food, and there’s not really a great solution to keeping lots of water on hand other than, you know, just buying a bunch of plastic bottles. I could do some crazy 5 gallon glass containers w/ iodine ect,. but … no.
I just keep a large supply of bottled water. I drink filtered water at home, but bottled is useful for trips. Stack the newest pack on the bottom and cycle through that way.
I figure a week is long enough to either get the water back online in case of a natural disaster, or the Army is distributing water by then. I’m just north of Seattle.
Which reminds me. Better check on my case of MREs. I think it’s getting close to expiring. Which means eating them before they go bad. Which means I’ll be expiring. :)
