Day 21. 69 to go.

If you haven't read the previous post, scroll down or click it. Read that one first so that this one makes sense.

21 days in with 69 days to go. The fresh food is virtually gone. I have 3 flour tortillas, one tomato, one yellow onion, and about 6 potatoes. Fresh milk is gone and that is the only thing that I miss so far. The dried milk is more obvious than I thought. I don't care for it on cereal. It has to be a smaller amount as a part of a recipe to be baked or otherwise disquised.

For dinner last night, I made some peach jello with some canned peaches. I boiled a couple of potatoes and mashed them and mixed them about 50/50 with dried potato flakes and a sprinkle of dried chopped onions. I mixed in the last of the sour cream. Complimented that with a can of roast beef with gravy and some homemade biscuits- using the dried milk. I still have lots of butter and strawberry jam. The biscuits were Deeeeeee-LISH!

Tid-bit-o-trivia on the biscuits... I broke my little tin biscuit cutter while cutting out the dough! In the grand scheme of things, it's not the greatest of my worries. One can always use a cup or a knife to cut out circles and squares for biscuits. The trouble is that using a cup to cut biscuit dough doesn't allow the air to escape as you press down and it's hard to get the biscuit out of the cup after since there is no access from the other side. I do have a soldering iron so I'll repair the biscuit cutter today. Worst case scenario, I would use a tin can and cut both ends off.

I heard some wise advice many years ago about situations like this. "If you have two, you have one. If you have one, you might have none." I have a tool to open my emergency water barrels and if I lost or broke that, I would have a tough time opening those barrels. Some basic back up kitchen utensils might be in order. A spare can opener would be crucial.

For breakfast this morning, I broke the last fresh egg over the left over mashed potatoes from last night and added a bit of flour and made potato pancakes. I grated the last of the Monterrey jack cheese and sprinkled a bit of that on the pancakes. When I get out the cheese grater, I usually grate a fair amount of it and put it in a zip lock bag. I was very conscious of the fact that this is the last of the cheese and I picked as much cheese out of the grater and I collected every last bit off of the cutting board and kept it. Normally I would just regard it as a casualty of cheese grating and a bit would be lost on the grater and the cutting board and then down the drain. The remaining cheese may last another 5 days or so.

Another observation: Years ago when I was working two jobs, eating gross amounts of fast food and drinking sodas regularly, I chewed a couple of antacids every night to relieve the heartburn. It's a lifestyle and diet that I no longer live and eat. A mild case of heartburn maybe once a month now is all I have and that's after a major meal with habanero peppers or other spicy food from my garden and I usually just lay on my left side to relieve it without an antacid tablet. I had a case of heartburn last night that may be due to the changing diet this last 3 weeks. I couldn't detect any of the regular triggers. I discovered that I have two antacid tablets in my medicine cabinet and I used one of them last night. I have about 10 more in my van and another 10 in a small emergency kit in one of my DJ road cases.

As a general rule, I don't use drugs of any kind, including over the counter pain medications or cold remedies. Those only manage or mitigate the symptoms but don't actually solve the problem. Given proper nutrition and environment, I believe the body already contains what it needs and can heal itself in most instances. In this DJ emergency kit, I do keep some cold remedies, some antacids, some pain relievers, a couple of bandages, tweezers, a couple of buttons and some needles and thread etc- Things that could get me through an event in a pinch and allow me to be the witty charming and effervescent entertainer even if I didn't feel well. It's probably time to change those out anyway now that I think of it. The equipment and road cases are stored in an unconditioned space and have been there for some time.

I went out to lunch with a client this week and my plate included some cabbage and a radish to garnish the dish with some color. I ate all of it.