minakochan visited recently, and commented in pleased surprise that our apartment actually had
food. That reminded me of how it had been in the beginning...
votania and I come from utterly different backgrounds. She was raised here in Arizona, in a working class/poor family. I come from Alaska, and my family was upper-middle-class. Given the weather, and the nature of things, we could expect that we could wind up with the power and phone out for a day or so in the event of a bad storm, and if things were really bad, the roads would remain unplowed or the car could break down. And if it was -60 or lower, no way was anyone going anywhere -- too dangerous in the event of a breakdown. So FatherSir always kept the house stocked with enough in the way of staple food items (and spare other things as well) to be able to weather these things with no problem.
Having only enough food on hand for a week panics me. While we were first moving in, I was very nervous.
votania was fine, but I saw that we had virtually no flour, no sugar, no beans, no rice, no powdered milk... barely even ramen! We got what she thought was enough, and I was still spooked.
So when we became slightly less broke, I made sure to have enough stuff on hand. I may be lousy at cooking basic things like bread, but there are such things as recipes, and I can follow them. (Mostly.)
So if the refrigerator is starting to look barren, and there's not a shopping trip budgeted immediately, I don't have to worry. I just make rice, throw together some soup, or make chili, and everybody's happy. (Only I've gotten used to cooking for a small army now, and generally I make a little too much. Only we don't have
digitalambience or
ralmathon over enough to soak up the excess, which means too many leftovers.)
So when people are getting all hot and bothered over preparedness, and having enough food to last a week, I really can't get my mind around what the big deal is. In my mind,
everybody keeps a 50-lb bag of flour on hand, and as much rice. That's a
minimum.
It's not because I'm paranoid that someone's going to attack Phoenix. It's not because we're not going to be using the car until gas prices go down (we aren't). It's because it's the way I was raised, and it makes it more convenient. I don't believe in the "just in time" system when there are so many things that can go wrong.
Next on the equipment list? A bread machine. Mmm. I want to make my own bread like FatherSir started doing, but I don't have the patience to deal with dough.