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This message is actually some commentary to reply to a recent posting by a "Hoser That's Not My Brother".  Since he decided to take his food-snobbery into an area that I care more than a little about, I thought I'd give a few opinions.  Please go read his bit first, and then come back here and this will make a lot more sense.  Actually, from other discussions, much of what I have to say is in agreement with the hoser, but I do hope to clarify some points, and give my opinion on others.

Starting off, there is much confusion in the food storage world, and he's right, what to store must come from you.  "Store what you eat, and eat what you store," is an oft-repeated mantra that is very correct. Just blindly following some list will get you in big trouble if you ever need that food.  You probably won't know how to use it, and it will likely give you serious problems shortly after eating.  The provident living website is a great resource for very basic elements of storage, but it is just a starting point.  Along with that, it's a good starting point for the information you need in actually using your storage in an efficient manner.

For me, I think one of the most important things to start out with though is by asking yourself the question, "Why food storage?".  I too have gone through some inter-job difficulties before where the bit of storage we had was a lifesaver for us, but there could be more.  Maybe you want to be ready for WTSHTF aka TEOTWAWKI, maybe you just know that food bought now (well, better last fall) was a great way to beat inflation, and the stock market (often by double digit percentages).  Whatever the case, how much, and what you need to store will change with that definition.  Me, I figure if I'm prepared for the absolute worst case that I don't think will ever happen, then I'll feel pretty good if I just get laid off without job prospects again.  Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Now, to review by category:

Grains
Yes, it is a lot of wheat to keep around, but then again, they don't call it the staff of life for nothing.  Try going without bread for a week or so, and see how you feel.  Sure you can say you did the atkins things before, but let's also look at some other factors.  First, given a situation where you really *need* to use your storage.  There is a good chance that your physical activity level is going to be changing a bit.  Be it heavy stress, to just plain walking a lot more, your body will be needing those carbs quick.  Also the fiber content will be very helpful in combating bad side effects of your stress levels, and other dietary changes.  One word of caution though, do ease into using real whole-wheat (even from store-bought whole wheat flour), or you will have some serious issues to contend with.  Wheat itself can also be used to cultivate simple meat-substitutes (hey, if you're really starving), and as stated, its protein content is necessary for making breads from other cereals.  Besides all of the above stated, your grains are some of your absolute *cheapest* ways to augment just how much food you have stored, heck even at today's way inflated prices you can get sealed buckets of hard wheat for $23 or so for 45#.  Add to that the fact that stored properly it has the longest stable shelf life of any food storage item, you should make sure you have a good amount of wheat and cereals in stock.

But it is smart to mix up your cereals some.  Get a couple of types of rice, maybe some softer wheat (cake flour, etc), Rye, Corn, Oats, and others.  you'll always want some variety in your diet, and hey, you can always just experiment with new breads too.

Oh, and do get a mill/wheat grinder.   Get a powered one first, and a hand mill second. It's amazing how much better bread is with fresh flour.  With a powered one you're more likely to use your wheat right now, saving yourself money, getting much better breads, and just getting healthier.  Added bonus, your house smells much nicer.

Fats and Oils

Yes embrace the necessity of Fats.  Well, I know I've never needed to tell a chef that, but I'll just back you up on that one.  For basic storage of oils, I can answer one good reason for shortening over standard vegetable oil.  Shelf life.  Based on it's nature, it tends to have a longer time before it goes rancid.  You have to be careful about how long you keep your oil around, which is one reason it doesn't tell you to keep too much.  Most people would buy some Costco sized mega-container, and it would all spoil before it was even opened, much less the problems it would have if opened.  I'll agree on the PB too, it's something we can't have enough of, and have no trouble rotating through (in fact tend to over do that :) )

Legumes

Dry beans are important for food storage, because as any Brasilian (and really any Latin American) will tell you, it's food.  It's cheap food, and combined, beans and rice bring out some wonder-twin powers in each other.  They combine to form more complete proteins which most of us will be lacking in a crappy situation because we won't have nearly the amount of meat we're used to.  With he dry beans, yes, choose most any you like, and get some variety (and learn how to use them).  Get the other dry or canned, as you would use them, but variety is good.  Dried soup mix can be the basic soups you see, largely for spices, but more often refers to a Soup Base, that the canneries used to have.  Was a simple soup/stock that was designed for mixing things in.  Stock has great nutrition, even dried, and makes it much easier to use so much of this dried food.

Sugars

Actually, I wouldn't lower it at all.  Now part of why this seems so high is based on the targeted usages for your food storage.  It's expected that if you're smart enough to be storing food, you'll probably have a garden too.  You'll see that sugar disappear the first time you make jam.  Don't forget your body will likely be craving some things that can sooth a sweet tooth while you change diets, and adding to that, most people can really do with the stress relief of their favorite desert.

As for the kool-aid, if you've read this far I'd think you're drinking some :) .  Actually one of the biggest reasons for the powdered drink mix is for water storage.  Depending on how much, and how you've stored it, or what your filtration method and storage is, you can wind up with some funky flavors.  It may be clean, but might taste quite off, and a little flavor will help you keep hydrated, which is pretty key in this area.  Same thing camping, that mountain stream water aint always that refreshingly crisp :)

I actually think I'd want more of the honey and molasses though.  We have a lot of good recipes using them.

Milk

How could you even question "other".  As a chef this should be seen as too little, without even trying.  Sweetened condensed milk is a good one, along with evaporated milk.  But let's be even more obvious:

• Cheese - Serious comfort food, excellent enzyms and good storage.  Freeze dried, Canned "queso", or *real* canned cheese (that stuff is quite good, and amazing storage).  Or if you have "wine cellar" type qualities, keep some cheese wheels around, they'll just get better tasting, and you know you'll rotate through them.
• Yogurt - Important dairy, will work wonders for your digestion, especially if not feeling well.  But how do you store it? Well, you can get cultures that will store well, and learn to make your own!
• Soy Milk - yeah, it's worthwhile to have :)
• UHT milk - Boxed milk, stores for a year or so.  Parmalat is famous for this.

As for powdered milk, I have a strong aversion to it from having to drink it too often when we lived overseas.  The texture is too different for my main staple food :)  However, the morning-moos variety is better than others, and I have recently found Nido which is dried whole milk!  yes, that helps the texture a ton.  You can find it in small cans in the latin foods section of Wally World to try it out, just don't buy the Nido Kinder (compare ingredients between the two to get a good idea).

There are some good ideas on how you can use powdered milk too, for making things like cheese/yogurt and more.  Those could help you out.

Cooking Essentials

Seasonings Seasonings Seasonings!  You've got a lot of 'basic foods', you'll want to spice them up.  Dried, whole, etc, and get your herb garden running.

Oh, and as for the salt, as mentioned with the sugars, just think of having to do some pickling.  Oh, and tanning, since I'm sure *everybody* will be running out trying to do some of that :)

Water

This is of course something that we can't be without, but always think is the last thing that we will not have.  Possibly, but I'd rather be prepared.  I go with the 2gal per person, since I think if I ever really need it, it'll be in the summer here, and I know I'll need more.  Plus I like to be clean, meaning more than the minimum.

As for bleach, it loses its real potency starting after about 6 months, so check as to how much you store.  You can get good dried chlorine too, good to keep around, and lasts longer.

Summary

There are great books that can help with this subject, and plenty of crappy ones too.  I can suggest a few, and love to help friend get ready for the best or worst of times.

The past couple of months have had me running around forever busy, and especially in regards to work, unable to *do* things.  With the change in employment I've been kept out of being able to do any development work, which as most of my friend will probably agree with is something that begins to drive me batty.

So this weekend turns into the first time in a while that I am home with no outside commitments, so I had to do *something*.  My wife is out in Colorado for a baby shower, so I've been a bit constrained watching my 3 kids, but still managed to get phase one of some new shelving done.

My basic premise was this wall in my garage.  Previously here was some old thin metal shelving, totally overloaded with assorted cruft.  It also made the "outside" fridge sit in front of other shelving, and was about "Windows ME" in terms of stability.  It also made access to my kayaks a bit difficult (you can see the end of one there in the top corner).  With my growing food storage, I had run out of other areas to put in cans, and wanted to improve the ability to rotate commonly used staples.  Systems such as the "Shelf Reliance" products are very nice, but were quite out of my budget.  Especially considering my needs in this situation.  I wanted the can rotation, but I needed the ability to have standard shelving also.  This would be much more apparent if you looked at the rest of my garage, which is stuffed, much of it the contents of the shelving I just pulled out.

Now I say Phase 1 with this project because this is not complete, in fact I plan on doing more tonight as my children hit the actual "sleeping" stage.  Right now they are *going* to sleep which means I have to stay in earshot to refill water and the like.  The next phase will be building out standard shelving from the wall I have just built, encaging the fridge, and providing storage on its side.  The beauty of this project is the can rollers take up so little space, and then provide a wall in which I can do something like this.  Heck, I could have surfaced it and just had it look like another wall.

At home we have a pretty nice Mistubishi TV that we've had for a few years now.  All of the sudden my wife starts complaining about getting a V-Chip block on random shows, and it won't go away.  Our standard passcode for that type of device wouldn't work.  Another opportunity for google to the rescue (and making this geek look better for the wife).

For anybody that cares, if you get the V-Chip code prompt on a Mitsubishi TV, pressing '9 + QV' will allow you to enter a replacement code.  Nothing like wonderful security.  At least in this case it allowed us to watch "PG" rated tv again.

After a long day, Brynn has finally joined us.

• 7lb 10oz
• 19" long
• 5:44 pm
• lot's of hair

Kelly and Brynn are doing very well, and are at UVRMC until Wednesday.

So I guess I should follow up Joe's Post about our party with my contributions. The food was good, the style of party was great. I agree about how nice it was to be able to taste everything without stuffing up on one food. My family came with 2 dishes, and one cheese. I'll relate here my part, and leave Kelly to discuss her part.

My main appetizer was some tasty chicken quesadillas, with (according to Alton's Rules) a sauce and a dip. The quesadillas were straightforward flour tortillas with cheese and grilled chicken. The chicken was rubbed before cooking so it was well seasoned, but the quesadilla's purpose was to be a tool to try out the dip and sauce.

The 'sauce' was actually just a store bought salsa. I can't find a link for it, but "Meza" brand fire-roasted garlic salsa, which occasionally is available at Costco has quickly become my favorite store-bought salsa. It's not all that hot (although a hit of sauce can help that), but it has this amazing garlic flavor that really makes it stand out on it's own, more than well worth it.

The Dip was the part I made that really stood out (imho). I started my caramelizing an onion with some fresh garlic (out of my garden). After I had gotten almost the color and crust I wanted, I hit it with some sherry cooking wine, and recaramelize some of the nice crusties back. I then mixed this with a basic cream dip base (mayo, sour cream, lemon juice, salt, pepper), and some crusties from cooking the chicken. Tasty.

As for our weird cheese, we actually just picked up a bit of Jarlsburg, because my wife claimed she had never heard of it.

Now Kelly can blog about her customized fresh raspberry/blueberry/strawberry cobbler!
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It's that time of year again folks. Time to shed my geeky shell and go back to nature. Yes I'll be doing what few geeks can comprehend, going back country Montana for a week. Yes, Power stops miles from where I'll be and cell phones stopped a long ways away. Oh it will feel so good to get back into the woods.

For any geek, if you haven't gone without any form of net connection, power, etc for an extended period, you really need to try taking a week off. It's quite the refreshing experience.

Oh, and it's kinda cool, I can see my granny deannie's truck outside her house

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So as a final follow-up to the interlug-bbq, I'll post my macaroni salad recipe that I brought.

Start with 1lb elbow macaroni, cooked slightly past al dente (the cooling process firms it up). Rinse to begin cooling, and stop the cooking, then place in the fridge.

Separately prepare:

• 1c Mayo
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper
• 1 Anaheim Chili
• 3T Dijon Mustard
• 1/2C Diced Red Onion
• 1/2C Cilantro
• 1/4C Lemon Juice
• 1/4C Chopped Green Onion
• 3 Hardboiled eggs

Mix together. Remove pasta from fridge, and pat dry. Add mixture to pasta, add black pepper to taste.

Joe mentioned preferring a previous version of this slightly better. In that one I had a bit of Chipotle also, spicing things up for the crowd (which was known to enjoy spices more than the average potluck). Just mixing in some Jalepeño, or a small Habañero would work well here.
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So today was a day just screaming for the grill, and with my wife out of town with the family, it allows me to play a little more with what I cook. I decided to have some fun with the grill today, not only because of the great weather, but hey I like the grill. Follow along for a couple of fun recipe's that tied together for a great meal.

My entree was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. Be warned, if you are faint of heart when it comes to spice, you'll need to be careful. It wasn't all that hot, but it would scare the crap out of some people I know. I started with some skirt steak (any thin cut steak that can handle a quick cook would work, the more tender the better). I took this and covered it in a rub that I made from some black peppercorns, coriander, mustard seeds, garlic cloves, and kosher salt. I ran that through my coffee grinder¹ under I had a nice coarse powder, and rubbed that on the meat, then let it sit while I got my charcoal going.

While cooking the meat, I also roasted two anaheim, and one jalepeño pepper. I timed it so both were done around the same time, then brought them in. I let the meat rest while I pulled the skin off the peppers, and cleaned out the seeds. I then put the peppers, along with a small amount of green onion, and a good amount of red onion, a tablespoon or so of honey, and a couple tablespoons of water, in a blender. Once mixed, a sliced my meat small, and brought the mixings, along with diced red and green bell pepper back outside.

I proceeded to take a couple of hard rolls², cut them open and toasted them on the grills. Once GBD³ I put a piece of Pepper Jack cheese on to melt, then loaded with meat, bell peppers, more diced red onion, and then put on some of my green sauce.

I was very impressed with myself, the bite of the black pepper on the meat was consistently met with the juicy firmness of the bell peppers, and the smooth creaminess of the green sauce. It was a resounding success. Heck, it even looked pretty. The greens and reds contrasted very nicely with the dark meat and light bread.

Of course, no good meal can go without desert, so while I was preparing the aforementioned meal, I also started my desert prep. I took a large granny smith apple (I like the firmness) sliced off the very top, then used a spoon to gut out the inside⁴. I then put a single pillsbury style cinnamon roll dough⁵ piece inside, with some extra cinnamon. I covered out the top with brown sugar, and wrapped inside of foil. These then went directly in the coals and started cooking while I made the rest of the meal.

After eating, I removed, unwrapped⁶ and put into bowls, topped with some good vanilla ice cream, and you have some amazingly good desert.

After recovering from my food induced coma I still had enough coals to re-season my dutch oven that I was careless enough to let get wet, and had some rust spots on it.

¹ Before anybody calls my bishop, yes, I have a grinder just for this purpose, and so should you. Freshly ground rubs are a key to good grilling. Oh, and can you imagine if anybody tried making coffee from my grinder?

² mini french bread rolls, pão de sal pelos brasileiros

³ Golden, Brown, and Delicious

⁴ Man, I could have really used a good multitasker like a melon baller or the almighty grapefruit spoon here. A regular spoon worked ok, but it could have been better

⁵ Just the normal kind you get in the tube at your local store, and flavor will do

⁶ Careful, if done right, your brown sugar will have created this extremely tasty sauce, that will melt right into your hands if you spill
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I know a lot of the geeks who will read this already saw this link, but I needed to post it for my family, as they will really be interested. Study Shows Dark Chocolate May Lower Blood Pressure and Prevent Diabetes
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As Kelly quoted I have created a monster. I have nobody to blame but myself, and yet I find a certain satisfaction in it. Probably because I get to come to work and get away from it.

After helping Garion learn some writing, he made a scribble that looked very much like an R after the word Badge . So I told him he had written the word badger , he then wanted to know what that meant.

All geeks know what I had to show him to demonstrate what a badger is

He can't get enough of that song now, and of course, he singing it and doing 'the badger dance'.
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