Bread

Bread is transformative. That’s the word that keeps recurring in the literature, “transformative”. It’s true. There is, on the face of it, no way it could not be. Bread does not occur in nature. It is artificial. It is an artifact. It is ancient, and therefore in a sense an ancient artifact, one from which we still have a huge amount to learn about the past. About our past as humans.

Emergency one-person survival stove- the best choice is alcohol, 91% of the time.

So, we have trail equipment stores, hardware stores of various types, liquor stores, drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, boating equipment stores and marinas as possible sources if you’re afoot on your own. That’s pretty versatile. I don’t think any other liquid fuel comes close, unless you’re willing to use automotive gasoline, which requires special stoves and a lot of ventilation and there’s still danger.

Easy Lemon Tarragon Chicken with Broccoli and Cauliflower “en suite”

This is one of those dishes that didn’t evolve from another recipe, it was just improvised from what was on-hand one evening. The light presence of lemon on the chicken and more pronounced presence on the veggies gives it sort of a light, summer-dish feel.

Not much art or skill required, but the results have been very pleasing.

Survival – Making fire without technology (or tools!) turns out to be easier than anyone thought

There’s a new, relatively easy way to make fire entirely with “primitive” (or found) materials, and it’s much, much easier than any other method I’ve seen over the decades.

Anyone who knows something about the subject of primitive fire-making will probably consider that incredibly unlikely, and possibly an outrageous statement. After hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years of making fire with primitive materials new techniques simply don’t appear out of nowhere. Indeed, it’s very possible that this is a very, very old technique… even, just possibly, the first and oldest technique used by our ancestors to make fire at will, that it was very nearly lost in recent times, and is just now becoming known again.

National Geographic “Origins”, “Spark of Civilization”, another swing, another miss

I stayed up the other night (despite being very tired) to watch the premier episode of National Geograpic’s new series “Origins”, entitled “Spark of Civilization”, which promised to enlighten us as to the importance and origins of our use of fire as a species, a subject I find fascinating.

Verjus… Verjuice

Basically it’s the bottled juice of unripe grapes, used in place of vinegar or citrus juice in recipes. One of the supposed advantages is that it doesn’t clash with wine. That typically applies for me only every few weeks (fewer if I’m cooking for myself, I’m likely to order wine with meals in restaurants) but I like it better than vinegar or citrus in general, it just seems to add a less jarring, or even harsh flavor note. I’m impressed.

The Essential Great-Start Zero-Status Zero-Snob-Appeal Cooking Tool List

A word about the status and snob appeal: it’s tempting, when starting out, to equate expensive tools with great results and assume that they’ll improve your cooking. It’s tempting to “celebrate” gains in proficiency by buying gadgets (and people tend to give you gifts) that you/they hope will make things a lot easier in the kitchen.

By and large they don’t, much.

Blue Apron

Far later in life than I should have I decided to try to LIBERATE myself from having to have other people feed me, prepare my food for me, whether personally or through the pay-as-you-go food infrastructure of our society, which tends to be expensive and/or notoriously not healthy.

The move was prompted by some changes in my life corresponding to the debut of Blue Apron, and it became the keystone of my strategy in learning how to cook decently. I figured it would reduce the barriers-to-entry, make cooking entire meals with good ingredients more accessible, and hopefully, eventually, be a stepping stone away from dependence on their service as well.

It’s worked… I’ve gone from not being able to cook much at all to being pretty decent at it, and I don’t plan to stop there.

Aquarium tubing as survival gear

This is an odd survival item in that I’ve never had any use for it in an urban or suburban or even rural environment, only in the woods and mountains, but for there I find it indispensable. I never go out for more than a day hike without at least six feet of aquarium tubing, preferably eight or nine feet, and I’ve used it for more decades than I care to count.