PolitiCook.net

Independence Days - week 3

Written by Kate Petersen on June 14, 2008 – 11:00 am -

Sharon Astyk’s original post, the inspiration for this series.

This week is a lengthy report; I paid attention to this challenge this week and have a lot of successes to tell about. I’ve also changed up some of the categories a bit, to make things clearer or to tailor the challenge more closely to our site and what we are doing here.

1. Plant something. It’s mid-June. It ought to be too late to plant spring things and too early for the fall crops. But the latest salmonella tomato recall happened this week and I started worrying about being able to find food later this summer at the farmer’s market. I checked with the county extension, who said it was still not too late to plant pole beans and squash from seed or to put established plants in the ground. In a perfect world, I’d have plants growing under my lights and ready to transplant, but since my world is far from perfect, I bought four Heat Wave tomato plants (they set fruit at temperatures up to 100°F / 38° C) at the garden center yesterday. They will go into the ground this weekend, along with seeds of squash and beans.

2. Harvest something. Not this week, but the strawberries are doing well and if the rabbits don’t get them I should have some ready for picking next week.

3. Preserve something. Last Saturday, I made a pot of chicken stock and canned eight pints of it. I would have done another batch, but something was wrong with my canner and it took a while to figure out that a tiny gasket was missing. I ordered the part but won’t do any more pressure canning until that arrives.

4. Self-reliance (formerly “Prep something”). I changed this topic’s title because to me “prep something” means getting raw food ready to cook and I always had to go look up what Sharon meant by it. “Self-reliance” is a much more general term. (And I didn’t want to spook anyone by calling it “Get ready for TEOTWAWKI.”)

Let me say here that I am absolutely convinced that we (the US) are headed into a prolonged economic depression that is going to last for many years, if not the rest of my life. I’m not quite ready to embrace the idea of a Mad Max kind of world where we all hide out in bunkers and protect our sealed buckets of wheat berries at gunpoint, but it’s time — past time — to prepare for rough times ahead. That means canning, storing, and freezing food while it’s reasonably abundant. It means thinking ahead in little ways — what happens if I wear out my work gloves or my shoes and can’t run out to the store to buy another pair because I can’t afford them or the shelves are empty because trucks aren’t running? What are ways to stay comfortable in 100-degree heat if we can’t afford to run the air conditioner, or if the power grid goes down for extended periods?

This week was research rather than doing or stocking up. I sat down and made a list of things I would like to learn how to do, things I will need to know, things it will be useful to have, and what I should do to reach those goals. One example: I have a treadle sewing machine that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. I know how to use one — heck, I learned to sew on one (yes, I’m so old that dirt calls me “Mom”) — so one goal is to check it over thoroughly and see what needs to be cleaned, oiled, repaired to put it into working order.

5. Cook something new. Because we are all about cooking here, I changed this topic to “Cook something new.” Not only that, but we have the World’s Greatest Cooking Resource right here, our own inimitable AAF. No excuses!

This week I decided to concentrate on beans. I have several different kinds of dried beans that I’ve picked up here and there but I never take time to soak and cook them. I made a white chicken chili using cannellini and I tried red beans and rice. Both require tinkering before I’ll be happy with them.

I can report, however, that the fast soak method works great.

Fast Soak for Beans

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While it’s heating, rinse the beans and remove any debris. Add rinsed beans to boiling water, bring back to a boil, and cook two minutes.

Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for 2-6 hours. Then remove any beans that have floated to the top, pour off the water and add fresh water. (This removes a lot of the starches that cause intestinal gas.) Proceed with the recipe.

6. Manage your reserves. Sunday: Sat down and made up a menu list for the week so as to avoid the 6:00-I’m-starving-can’t-we-just-order-out-for-pizza anguished cries from the men. I’ve been lax about menu planning since DH’s accident because the days have been so hectic, but now that things are calming down a bit I can get back to a more normal schedule.

Friday: After an enormously hectic day in which I completely forgot to eat, I pulled two precooked casseroles from the freezer and reheated them for dinner. The guys were deliriously happy. I went to bed early.

Discovered that the reason that the laundry detergent was running out so fast was that both the men were using two of the little measuring cups per load instead of one. (Sort of defeats the purpose of buying the ultra-concentrated stuff.) However, we have now got that straightened out, managing the reserves of detergent!

Managing the financial reserves: This week I started really paying attention to the CVS sales and Extra Care Bucks program, something I’d read about but had mentally filed with “compulsive coupon clipping.” However, on Monday there was a sign out front of the store advertising four fridge packs of Coke product for $11 with a $3 Extra Care Bucks rebate (which made it effectively $2 for 12 cans of soda). It’s summer. Both men are addicted to caffeine and carbonation (At least they drink diet sodas), so anywhere I can save money on that is good. Looking through the weekly ads, it looks like there are some sales on other products we normally use, so I will save money on those as well.

The trick is not to be tempted to buy stuff you don’t need or use. Doesn’t matter how good that sale on disposable diapers might be if your youngest child is 24. Unless your youngest child has children, of course. Mine doesn’t, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

7. Work on local food systems connections. Let’s change up another category a bit. Sharon’s original plan was to emphasize buying locally and in season, but she has stretched it to include building relationships with neighbors and community. I think this is not only a fine idea, but one that will be absolutely crucial in the coming years. Know your neighbors and be willing to help each other — we have got to get away from the polite suburban habit of keeping ourselves strictly to ourselves. Earlier this year I was ashamed to realize that we’ve lived in this house for fourteen years and know the names only of three families in the neighborhood.

So this week I: Extolled the praises of the local organic food co-op to a couple of people who had written to Freecycle looking for exactly this thing. Updated the co-op’s website with summer pickup dates. Took them a ton of brown paper bags to be used for the next round of orders. Baked a couple of loaves of bread for the neighbor as a “thank you” for the loan of a walker DH used right after the accident.

8. Learn something new. Although it could easily go under “self reliance,” I am adding this subject because I think it deserves its own category. The more we know, the more we can do for ourselves. (Besides, “learning something” is an easy one for most of us.)

This week I signed up to take a beginner’s knitting class: stretch the brain muscles learning to do something new with my hands, something constructive to do while waiting for the spouse to be done with interminable physical therapy and doctor appointments. I can’t stitch by hand very well any more, so I hope this will fill that void and give me a new, useful skill. The class is Thursday evening and I’ll report back next Saturday.

Maybe someday I can reproduce my faithful 30-year-old cable knit sweater that is so ratty I can’t wear it out of the house anymore but so comfortable I refuse to part with it.

Posted in Farming & Homesteading, Food, Independence Days, The Politics of Food |