NYC foodies face the apocalypse
Thursday July 3, 2008
Terry Mattingly, who saves everything, forwarded to me this e-mail I sent him on October 12, 2001, one month after the 9/11 attacks. I publish it here to let you know that I am married to the perfect woman for...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Wuve, Twuu Wuve!
Yes, Julie is perfect for you, Rod.
If you buy a can of sterno, you can use one of those stove-top espresso pots ($10) to make the real thing in an urban bunker. I can understand that slipping the mind in post 9-11 NYC. Horizon organic milk in the 8 oz. containers is irradiated and can be stored for a long, long time without refrigeration. Yes, lattes are still possible in a terror attack.
Leave her alone about the pond cake. You're a lucky dude.
Canned evaporated milk has a long shelf life also.
I'm sorry, but that certainly doesn't seem the perfect wife for you. I'd think you'd do much better with someone who reminded you that you're clearly on the edge of paranoid breakdown at most moments, that 90% of your posts are about doom, in one form or the other: cultural doom, economic doom, nuclear doom, religious doom, ethnic doom, environmental doom, energy doom, etc. She would remind you that it is literally impossible for ALL of those disparate dooms to occur, and hence you spend immense amounts of time and personal energy preparing for a future you can neither predict or control.
I would think that maybe someone to balance your apocalyptic porn fetish with some life-affirming, trust in the universe, "all things will be well" optimism would be of greater value.
Obviously, I don't know your wife, so I mean no offense. She sounds like a supportive sweetheart. I myself tend to be lazy and curmudgeonly, hence a wife who drags me out of the house to meet people and believes in the Protestant work ethic seems a good choice. Maybe helping you stock the "end of the world" shelter isn't really that helpful.
What a great story! You'd have an ally in my husband, who has taken to grinding his own coffee and shudders at my occasional use of Folgers Coffee Singles. Speaking of which, I wonder if coffee singles would brew in cold water? If they did, they might be easier to drink than cold instant crystals, and you could store quite a few bags in a relatively small space...
But my husband is the "emergency preparedness" expert in the family. The last time there was even a remote chance that hurricanes in the Gulf might cause us some bad weather and power outages, he bought boxes of bottled water and built what visiting family members dubbed the "Wall o' Water" along one wall of our kitchen. I can't blame the man--he went through Hurricane Hugo in Charlotte, NC, which left a lot of people unprepared.
That would make a great comedy skit.
You poor thing, JPL, if only you knew what I was like in real life. Anyway, everybody that fall in NYC was stocking up food and water on the advice of authorities, in case there was some kind of subsequent attack. Homeland Security still advises it.
That is great!
I see stocking up as not necessarily preparing for the apocalypse, but for any potential hard times. That could include a lay-off, in which case wouldn't it be nice not have to worry about the food bill on top of everything else?
We have four 15-gallon barrels of water stored (among other things) in case the power goes out for a few days, which is not uncommon around here.
I am not terribly good at advance planning, but one thing I do fret about in case of emergency is not having enough coffee. I use a French press, so all I need is away to heat the water (which I could do either on our woodstove, if it were winter, or in our firepit if it's summer). And the next time I visit my mom, I'm going to make off with her antique coffee grinder! The apocolypse can then go ahead and occur, and I will be plenty energetic for it.
Well, if I'm the poorer for not knowing how you are in real life, you could be more like that here, and hence enrich me! :)
Gotta have Triscuits. Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits.
Also need to stockpile cans of chickpeas and bottled olive oil and lemon juice to make hummus to go with the Triscuits. Storebought hummus might be hard to come by.
And a hundred rounds of buckshot. And several bricks of .22 LR subsonics. And a stack of squirrel recipes.
JPL, Rod is part of a "Nomad" generation that invariably acquires survivalist instincts during a time of national/cultural crisis. Because, to borrow from the late Jerry Garcia's final hit song, it's "even worse than it appears." Read Strauss & Howe's "The Fourth Turning" a get hip to the jive, baby.
Gosh, Rod. Why would you mix instant coffee with tap water when Julie (from what I read) made it clear she bought (bottled I assume) water?
I don't want to gross you out, but did she also buy the survivalists' recommended canned beef stew? Stir in 1/4 cup (or more, because you'll probably need it) of a fine red wine (which I'd reckon you've got stockpiled), and it's only half bad...
I hear they taste like catholics .
Two words to fight caffeine deprivation. Tea Camelias. Any chance they might thrive in Dallas? Or you could get really adventurous and consider a yerba mate tree.
My husband is soooo into this stuff. Have to admit it's nice having food - canned, boxed, frozen - to last us several months. The higher food prices this summer haven't effected us too badly because of the supply.
We also have a couple of large buckets of emergency rations and bottled water for the "real deal" should it occur. Oh, and let's not forget our "bug-out packs." He made up two backpacks with emergency supplies in case we have to leave in a hurry.
I guess opposites really do attract. ;-)
PP
And a stack of squirrel recipes.
No kidding. When it comes to squirrel, my cup runneth over.
Driving through the Ozarks once, I saw a bumper sticker that read "Squirrel - It's not just for breakfast anymore"
I grew up in Appalachian KY, so I know all about the squirrel. Haven't had any good fried squirrel in cream gravy since my Mam'maw passed away.
PP
Once upon a time, I belonged to a mostly Catholic extremist religious group. Their teaching became more and more apocalyptic. A large group of people actually moved to the Midwest from California, because there was supposed to be a giant earthquake that would cause that sin-ridden state to slide into the sea. Little did they know that when The Lord spoke of bringing Termination upon them, He really meant Arnold, not an earthquake. But I digress.
Back then, believe it or not, I was a very shy, modest Catholic girl. I actually wore a headscarf, such being the popular fashion to indicate proper submission and godliness at the time. Nevertheless, we eventually got kicked out for being "rebellious." Our Dear Leaders didn't frame it that way, of course. They sent one of their godly goon/flunkeys around to catechize us about our leaving and make sure it was perfectly understood that we were doing it of our own free will. This was emphatically not the case, but I agreed under duress. As in, "Yes. YES! I'll say ANYTHING to get your narrow white heinie off my property before I go medieval on you and mess you up like a protomartyr, all pregnant as I am." But again, I digress.
The point is, the SPECIAL members of the group, who were in on the super sekrit teachings, had started storing comestibles down cellar, like the Mormons. There's keeping up with the Joneses (hopefully not the Jim Joneses) even among rightwing religions. The only members of our former group of "brothers and sisters" ever to invite us over again after our expulsion gave us a tour of their new house, and we saw the telltale garbage cans full of water and the stacks of beans in their basement.
This was back around 1980, when the Apocalypse was supposedly well on its way. We're still waiting, I see. I guess our erstwhile pals ate a lot of beans in the 80s. Why do people in the richest and most secure nation in the world do this? Why has this become a cultural meme, repeating over . . . and over . . . and over . . .? Beats me.
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