use it or lose it??
Who knows!
All they keep bleeping across the television stations is the 'storm" that is supposed to consume us - hitting anytime (depending on the station in the area) from this afternoon to tonight and not stopping till Monday morning.
Different stations - different weathermen - different opinions.
Living in the snowbelt - you do what comes naturally - you panic shop! Because of the October Surprise we got back in 2006 with no power for 10 days and all the food we lost in the 3 freezers (3 days after stocking up with all my holiday meats and meats for the winter!) my stock up choices have changed a bit.
I don't expect it to be a week long event - just a couple days - so a couple loaves of white bread will work for peanut butter or cold cuts if we have to. A box of crackers to go with the pepperoni and cheese for the first day of a power outage. Not really planning on no power - but you just never know. One high-lift hits a pole and it can go out if it isn't off because of the storm and ice.
I've got plenty of eggs in the house for baking - so I made a bowl of egg salad. Pizza dough has risen and is split for 2 pizzas and is in the fridge. My favorite pizza sauce with onions and peppers is in the fridge - all done. Easy cooking since I am stripping beds and doing laundry. Just in case.
Last night I was buying bread, crackers and milk - a few cans of fruit - bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and batteries. Not much. And it is quite interesting to see what panic buyers will buy. The frozen food section was actually trashed - microwave meals and sandwiches, frozen pizzas of all kinds, pizza rolls, TV dinners, etc. Boxed meals were loaded into carts. And then you have the beer, chips, cheese and crackers people that are spending more time looking through DVD's and DVD rentals to enjoy while bunkering down.
Much of the dairy section was pretty well cleaned out - milk was scarce, eggs were very low, cheeses were low, pre-packaged cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages - really low.
Ground beef was on sale - and the customers were like flies on it! There was almost a fight when a tall guy reached over a short woman's head and grabbed the last bulk pack! Then the bickering starts - you have 3 packages in your cart and I want one, etc. etc. It's bad when you have to keep an eye on your cart so no one shops out of it!
Love the shoppers that don't look at the price - just grab the meat package and walk away with it and the shoppers that were standing there for a length of time deciding if they wanted it or not get ticked off. Deli girls were slicing cold cuts and cheeses and packing the deli salads into containers.
Prepared foods were disappearing fast.
Some of it I just don't understand. If you have power now and the storm is not going to hit for 24 - 36 hours - why can't you cook and bake? Why stock up on microwave meals anyway? If you don't have power you can't cook them anyway.
I love the wonderful aroma of home cooking and baking. I've got food in the freezers to cook up so that I don't lose it and I've got canned goods - just in case. If there is no power outage then we are just fine. I won't panic until it hits and we see what happens.
Meanwhile - today I've got egg salad for snacking on, homemade pizza (plenty of DVD's in the collection!) and enough goodies for a large antipasto. Made a batch of cookies for something sweet to pick on or dunk in tea. We have the hams, salami, pepperoni, and assorted cheeses for the antipasto that work well for sandwiches or panini.
I'm just going to play it by ear. If the weather gets worse and the weather reports are more severe - then I will just start cooking. It's better to cook it up - get both stoves and ovens going at the same time, plug in all three crockpots, and share with the elderly neighbors - than to lose it all. Just depends on what happens.
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