food

Quarantine soup.

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I don’t like to waste food, especially since it’s been harder to find lately. It’s not that we’re food insecure, but that we could be.

Pandemic-related shortages have been reported in stores nationwide, and meat-processing facility closures have led some producers to slaughter animals rather than wait out the pandemic.

In addition, an expert I interviewed for a recent COVID-19 article noted that there will likely be some food shortages in the coming year. Mostly those would be specialty items, or high-maintenance crops that farmers aren’t sure they will have the manpower to nurture and harvest. (It can’t all be done by machine.)

Too, some farmers are plowing crops under right now because their biggest-ticket buyers – hotels and restaurants – aren’t buying. An analyst quoted by U.S. News & World Report notes this could lead to shortages (and higher prices) in the supermarket.

Not wasting food has always been a goal. But now it seems more important than ever.

 

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Extreme Frugality: Gardening edition.

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Note: This is one of an occasional series of articles on saving money.

Renee’s Garden sends me a press kit and a packet of seeds every year. This year’s freebie was a variety of gourmet kale called Purple Moon. Gorgeous stuff, and we haven’t grown kale for several years, so DF and I were pretty excited.

So is everyone else, apparently: Purple Moon is already sold out for the season.

(As a Renee’s Garden affiliate, I may receive a fee if anyone buys seeds through my link.)

It’ll be one of three purple plants in this year’s garden, joining red cabbage (which is actually a maroon so dark it might as well be purple) and purple carrots (part of a four-color carrot mix). Those deep colors are supposed to be full of antioxidants, which is great, but we mostly care about the flavor.

And the cost: It’s hard to beat free. For the first time ever I took part in the media seed program, paying only the postage for English and pickling cucumbers, edamame, sugar snap peas and onions. Will definitely be writing about these; we’re particularly intrigued by the edamame, since we don’t know if it will grow here (DF’s grandkids will be excited if it does, since they love the stuff).

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The low-maintenance preppers.

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th-2(Happy Throwback Thursday! This article was originally published on Feb. 27, 2014. But the subject matter seems pretty current.)

I just went shopping in our basement, bringing up several items that were missing in our upstairs cupboards: catsup and ibuprofen (both from Costco), a jar of homemade jam, a can of chicken soup.

It always tickles me to see how much we’ve got stored down there, from the kale we grew and dried to bedpillow-sized sacks of dried beans.

Since I live in a really seismic state, the stockpile also makes me feel safe and prepared. Well, as prepared as one can ever be for another Good Friday Earthquake. (And yes, I’ve thought about what might happen if the house collapsed into the basement: Anger, panic and finally rueful laughter.)

That’s probably why an Everyday Cheapskate post called “Don’t be scared, be prepared” resonated so much and got me thinking, once again, about food preparedness.

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National Bacon Day giveaway.

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(As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This revenue helps keep the blog lights on.)

Apparently today is National Bacon Day. If you were to ask DF, he would likely insist that every day is National Bacon Day. (He eats a lot of the stuff.)

Some people believe that bacon is bad for you. It probably is. But if you need a reason to believe in bacon, check out this interesting factoid from National Today:

Bacon contains a nutrient (we know, we’re surprised too) called “choline.” It’s been known to increase intelligence and memory, fight Alzheimer’s Disease, and protect the heart from developing lethal problems.

We never thought our favorite food could get any better, but then we learn about its health benefits. Thank you, bacon; you’re the gift that keeps on giving.

I’ve been collecting porcine prizes for just such an occasion. The winner of the National Bacon Day giveaway will receive the following delights:

Makin’ Bacon game. This is touted as “a delicious dice game for the whole family.” I’ll let the winner be the judge.

Wooden sign. It says “Bacon is duct tape for the kitchen.” Agreed!

Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages. Yes. Someone invented Bacon Band-Aids.

 

 

“I Love Bacon,” by Jayne Rockmill. This cookbook has recipes for every meal of the day, and also for desserts. (My dear partner, who has been known to make Peanut Butter and Bacon Cookies and Bacon-Molasses-Cayenne Peanut Brittle, approved this message.)

Bacon Bowls. According to the packaging, these dishwasher-safe items let you make “delicious edible bowls out of bacon!” They can be used in the microwave, toaster oven or regular oven.

 

 

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Don’t throw it out until you’ve smelled it.

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(Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Throwback Thursday! In honor of all the food that will be prepared — and perhaps wasted — over the next few days, I’m republishing this piece from May 12, 2012. It’s my hope that a little judicious leftover prep and/or freezing will cut down on waste.)

I didn’t get to the supermarket for a few days after my arrival in Anchorage. Until then, I used the milk and oatmeal my hostess already had. When I mentioned that I’d be replacing what I used, she looked surprised.

“Uh, that’s really old milk. I meant to warn you off it,” she said.

It had tasted fine to me. That is to say, it tasted about as good as nonfat milk ever tastes – like the water they used to wash a cow. All that mattered to me is that it loosened up the oats in the bowl.

I nearly changed my tune when I checked the “sell by” date: April 5. It was then May 6. I was drinking milk a month past its prime.

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When the frost is on the punkin.

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Before I went to bed last night I felt a sudden disturbance in the force. Although I’d checked the weather forecast – twice! – and it predicted a low of 40, the word “frost” flashed into my brain.

I checked again, and still no suggestion of anything cold enough to kill an outdoor plant. This morning I opened my eyes to sun bracketing the blackout curtains in our bedroom, and vowed to pick the peas. Even though it had been cool and very rainy all week, surely some of the last stragglers of the season would be ready to go.

And then DF came home from church. “Frost,” he announced.

It was 38 degrees at the time, but apparently it’s possible for frost to form even when the temperature is technically above freezing. (This short piece by Tom Skilling explains how.) At the time, I wasn’t interested in an explanation – I just wanted to see if anything in the garden was still alive.

Specifically, I was wondering about the pumpkins.

Just for fun we put two pumpkin seedlings into the ground in May. After a slow start we got exactly one fruit, which turned orange surprisingly fast. Ultimately we wound up with four more, two of which also turned orange. Two of them were latecomers and had only begun to turn orange (or so we thought) when the temperature changed.

Every day DF and I would go out to take a look at the garden in general, but our favorite part was the smallish pumpkin patch. The bright orange shining through the leaves, and the steady growth of the green ones, filled us with inordinate happiness. We anticipated letting his granddaughters choose their own jack o’ lantern material, and to invite Orion, the free-range kid to choose one as well.

And now a stealth frost might have ruined that.

 

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The first fire.

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I got home at 3 a.m. Saturday from the trifecta trip: D.C. sightseeing, FinCon19 and a visit to my brother’s. Very little sleep and not much to drink on the long trip, so I attributed my slight sore throat to fatigue and the dryness of airplane air.

After about five hours of sleep I spent a lovely, quiet day with DF, including a trip to Glen Alps in the city’s Hillside neighborhood, for a little fresh air and a short walk to enjoy the view.

When I left everything was still unnaturally green due to warmer-than-usual summer, but there’s definitely an autumnal feeling now: leaves turning gold, a coolness in the air, a lowering angle of sun, the sharp scent of highbush cranberries and dying vegetation.

Our back yard is dying back, too, but a ton of tomatoes still peep out from the tangle of outdoor vines. It’s pretty astonishing that they’re doing as well as they are, given that they’re varieties like Stupice and Czech’s bush rather than Siberian hybrid tomatoes.

The outdoor cucumber vines are yellowing but still producing; also unusual, but welcome, since the greenhouse vines are spawned-out. The pea vines are definitely on the wane, yet I picked enough to yield a full pint of shelled fruit, which will make the coming year’s turkey pies that much more succulent. The pods went into the boiling bag, to yield yet another container of soup stock with a definite sweetness.

And oh, the pumpkins, whose vines started slowly but have now produced five or six behemoths that will remain in situ until just before the first frost. Most will be divided among family and friends, with the proviso that we get the pulp scooped out during the jack o’lantern process. We’ll save a few seeds to plant and roast the rest, and add the squishy parts to the boiling bag.

By early evening I realized that I still had the sore throat, along with some congestion and headache. No elevation in temperature, though, so I figured it was a virus that I could kill with fluids and rest.

Sleeping for about 10 hours didn’t drive it away, so this morning DF bundled me back into bed with a couple of heated rice socks and an Advil PM. For almost the next six hours I slept deeply, and woke still under the weather but definitely stronger, albeit somewhat Rip Van Winkled by the loss of most of a day.

And then DF built the first fire of the season.

 

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Civil twilight.

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A little after 2 a.m. yesterday Anchorage entered a 28-day period during which the light never stops. Specifically, we will have 24 hours of either sun or something called “civil twilight.” That’s when the geometric center of the sun is six degrees below the horizon.

Even though we technically have a sunset, the sun is still within those six degrees. It keeps the darkness from taking hold – at least for the next 27 days.

Civil twilight is not to be confused with astronomical twilight or nautical twilight. But it sure confuses the folks on whom it endlessly shines. As I noted in “Breaking up is hard to do,” the increased daylight makes us all a little bit giddy.

Kids ride their bikes until well past 11 p.m., and ice cream trucks ply their wares long after what would be quittin’ time in the Lower 48. People fish all night and then go to work. Or they’ll play softball until they drop from exhaustion (and directly into the cool embrace of a bucket of brews).

 

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The lettuce tree.

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It’s been 11 days since my last post. Not dead, just dazed: by work deadlines, by the ever-increasing daylight and, lately, by the lettuce tree in our living room. (See photo at left.)

Yep, that’s lettuce. It began its life late last year as a romaine seed in a pot in our kitchen, because DF wondered whether it would grow indoors.

Spoiler alert: It did.

Initially the pot stood by a big window on our kitchen table. The lettuce likely wouldn’t have made it on daylight alone, thanks both to short days and low winter light levels.

They can get pretty darned low; as this Facebook post from Alaska Climate Info notes, on winter solstice the sun was 5.5 degrees above the horizon. Compare that to winter sun angles in Florida, which are as high as 38 degrees.

Fortunately, the lettuce stood right next to the Aerogarden hydroponic setup in which DF was growing Tumbling Tom cherry tomatoes. This setup features lights that are on for as long as we are up.

Although the romaine wasn’t directly under those grow lights, it got enough to survive. As you can see.

 

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Spring, and cake, and springy cake.

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Spring has sprung,

The grass has riz,

I wonder where the flowers is?

That’s a little poem my dad used to recite when I was a kid. He was also fond of:

Spring has sprung,

The grass is riz,

The bird is on the wing.

Isn’t that absurd?

I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Trouble is, spring hasn’t sprung – not reliably, anyway. As I noted in “Snow and soup,” we’ve been having back-and-forth weather. One day it’s so sunny and mild that it’s 95 degrees in our closed-up greenhouse. Then it drops into the 30s at night and only grudgingly inches back into the 40s the next day.

Today my niece sent a photo of a strawberry blossom in the bed next to her foundation. Woo hoo! And when will our less-protected beds follow suit?

While snow meant soup, sorta-spring has meant cake. I may have a new favorite. And it’s frugal cake.

 

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