I need more garden

Today was stormy and many of the supermarket shelves were bare. Never mind global warming, a few storms, a few hundred earthquakes and some closed roads/train tracks are giving us a small but significant glimpse of life without Mama-Supermarket with her loving and laden shelves.

Since the earthquake devastated Christchurch two weeks ago and gave me the experience of lying in bed as if in a giant rocking cradle, I've had cause to consider our preparations, which are not nearly good enough. We have a battery radio and somewhere some torches which may or may not have batteries and we have matches but possibly not candles though one benefit of having a smoker for a husband is he always seems to have a lighter handy. We have plenty of food though it is still all in the kitchen. We have the chooks to provide eggs and some food in the garden.

Food in the garden. Not enough. This is the first year in the last four that I haven't created new garden, due to the ridiculousness of being busy doing things which are not gardening. This is going to have to change. I need to create some more garden and put some spuds in it. Thank goodness the school holidays are very close.

I am glad that I haven't put all my food into glass jars. Glass jars feel very back to basics and 'natural homemakerish' (whatever that means) and they don't leach oestrogens or phytoestrogens into the food like plastic, but they aren't much good in smithereens on the floor when the Alpine faultline starts to rock and roll. I'm also pleased that my food in glass is in a different area to my food in plastic, so the shards won't ruin the rest of our supplies.

Sourdough has to be pretty clever stuff in the not-quite-apocalyptic-just-standard-NZ-earthquake scenario. Twice this week I have taken the starter out of the fridge and fed it and then not found time to actually make any bread. Hoping tomorrow morning is third time lucky. For that matter, there was also the stock I ruined earlier this week when I turned the slow cooker off but didn't strain and refrigerate it before going to work. Today I bunged an entire chook in the slow cooker and tomorrow is Sunday so surely I won't be a wicked waster while other people are at church and we will have wonderful soups and other chickeny things this coming week. I put ginger and star anise into it for a zingy stock.

Knitting a purple cardy is of very little use as an earthquake preparation, but nevertheless I have been doing a little needle clicking. Indeed I clicked so enthusiastically that I thought I could multi-task and then I dropped stitches and had to undo three rows and concentrate very hard. Yes. I learnt a lesson from it. When I wasn't needle clicking with purple wool, I did have a sewing needle out and put new elastic bands on the four corners of the wool underlay so that I will no longer wake up and find the entire underlay down the side of the bed, held in only by the tucked in sheet. I also cleaned the toilet at 7am this morning which is a Saturday so please do understand that I have been quite well behaved overall today.

The children and I went to a school gala at lunchtime today. I ate a pork sandwich and maybe it has worms in it but like a pathetic no-drugs quarter-baked hedonist, I jumped right in and ate it anyway. The children had sausages in bread which is what I thought I was lining up for as well. The main achievement though, was that I found Susan Faludi's Backlash in the books section for only 20 cents. I would have paid more to have her back on my shelves, but in the event, Fionn had other uses for my change so we bought some Ben 10 game which the rest of them have played for much of the afternoon. And fudge. What kind of gala experience is it if you don't buy fudge?

I found a blog called Sally Fallon wants to soak my nuts. My favourite post is indeed the walnuts one. Quite refreshing in tone. Maybe I will soak some walnuts tonight, as I bought the latest Cuisine magazine last week as obviously frittering our money away on magazines is also a good response to the need for proper earthquake planning and it has a recipe for something called walnut aillade. Which I can write about because then I don't need to pronounce it out loud. Of course Cuisine magazine is not written by mad Nourishers like Sally Fallon so it doesn't say to soak the walnuts. Or pray over them. Or source them from the old lady down the road as a swap for mowing her lawn.

Comments

Sharonnz said…
Yes, I've been rethinking our glass food storage over the last fortnight but have neither the funds nor energy to change back to plastic.
Anonymous said…
My mind boggles at all the things you get done in a day.

missjoestar

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