Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I received an order from the folks at Mountain House last week. They’ve had some menu changes for 2010 with the addition of a couple new flavors in the pouches and the retirement of a couple others. In the somewhat more germane #10 cans there have been no changes. Im the kind of guy who doesn’t mind eating the same thing over and over if it’s something I like so I have some pretty strong preferences. If you find yourself in a position to purchase some #10 cans of the Mountain House, I recommend the Spaghetti, Chicken w/ Rice, Chicken Teriyaki and Lasagna. The other flavors are okay, but those four are my favorites. Whats nice is that those flavors are also available in the pouches as well as the cans, so a fella can simply buy a pouch to try for a couple bucks before dropping the larger coin for the #10 cans.
Although the freeze-drieds are the ultimate in long-term storage (although some would deride them as ‘yuppie survival food’ where ‘yuppie’ is code for ‘makes more money than me’) they really are mostly a luxury. They are, however, an excellent ‘force multiplier’ to help you make the most out of your other food storage. What I mean by that is that the freeze drieds enable me to do more versatile things with the non-FD storage food. Most of us stock up on canned goods (vegetables, fruits, etc) and bulk dry foods (rice, pasta, wheat, corn, etc) which will certainly fill your belly but can be a little challenging to work with in terms of coming up with something appetizing and unique. The freezedrieds give more flexibility with the meat and egg selections, two staples that are notoriously tough to store long term. For example: Canned tomatoes, bulk pasta, freezedried chicken, dried onions, canned mushrooms, dried garlic, assorted spices, some olive oil and –presto- chicken cacciatore. Or, FD shrimp, canned tomatoes, canned peppers, hot sauce, dried onions, spices, steamed rice and you’ve got shrimp creole. (Come to think of it, Mountain House used to make a very good shrimp creole..I wish it was still offered.) The FD eggs alone are worthy of inclusion just on their amazing versatility – omlettes, frittatas, baked goods, scrambled eggs, and the like are all possible with eggs. The laternative, of course, would be to have chickens and while that’s becoming more and more popular these days chickens aren’t exactly long-term storable.
Still, the bulk of our food storage is non-FD. We’ve a good supply of canned and jarred food, as well as many cases of self-canned staples from the LDS cannery. In addition, we also keep a pretty healthy amount of regular day-to-day use foodstuffs on hand – instant potatoes, stuffing mix, bread crumbs, oatmeal, salt, sugar, seasoned rices, seasoning mixes, etc, etc. On top of that theres the bulk storage of wheat, pasta, rice, and corn. A huge mountain of stored food is a lovely thing to behold, lemme tell ya.
The apocalypse is going to be many things, but it isn’t going to be rice and beans every day for months on end…not if I have any say in it.
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I picked up a few of the Korean contract Glock mags the other day. I am a notorious magazine snob and I have yet to meet a non OEM Glock mag that I approve of. However, the Korean mags are getting overwhelmingly positive reviews so I thought it might be worth trying them out. I’ll probably use them as range mags and keep the factory mags for ‘serious use’ but it’ll be interesting to give these things a workout. Theyre about 1/3 the cost of the factory mag so if they turn out to be reliable there may be a group purchase down the line.
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The more I try to follow the news about the economy, the more I am convinced that if we are in a recovery (which Im not really sure we are) it is, indeed, what they are terming a ‘jobless recovery’. Businesses are making do with the remaining employees they have and are not jumping to hire any new ones. That’s just good financial sense if youre not sure where your market and sales are going. On the other hand, labor is probably pretty cheap now so it would be a good time to trim the deadwood and bring in better talented/skilled labor. Regardless, I am still pessimistic on the economic outlook. Theres a lot of cool stuff on the market right now at bargain prices as people try to keep their businesses afloat so if you have money its an excellent time to buy, but all I can think is that we should be holding on to whatever we have with both hands because we have no idea if things are going to get worse before they get better. As I told someone the other day, the times I have regretted spending money far outnumber the times I have regretted not spending money…so if there is a recovery going on, Im afraid theyre going to have to rely on someone else to spend money on it.
