Autarky

 

Impressionism / Claude Monet/ Snow Scene at Argenteuil

Day before Xmas.  Gonna head over to spend the night in the spare room at the boys place to be there on Christmas day since the winter storm is heading this way and it stands a decent chance of being a whopper for the Oregonian/Washingtonians up here in this neck of the clear cut.

One of the things that I need to work seriously on is the way of backing off from the food chain that us working folks use.  Since I am going to be relatively poor, I will need to act it out and reduce to insignificance my eating out and eating fancy.  This shouldn’t be hard, having the time to cook is a huge help.  I am going to have around 10.5 hours each day suddenly made available so a lot of what seems to be complicated cooking is easily within my reach.

I am seriously pondering spending some nickels on a pressure cooker.  A big 23-quart presto that can double as a hot water canner.  I will have to get rid of my current brewing pot (5-gallon from WallyWorld) and use the new pressure cooker as a brew-pot as well.  

Pressure cookers allow for preservation of sauces and such.  With a busy day (one that I will be tired at the end of and sleep like a baby) I should be able to prepare a bunch of stuff to eat for the upcoming month or so.  

I will need to change how I approach eating, I am not going to be radical and claim to go vegan all the sudden, but the world is ‘a changing and I need to figure out how to keep up.  No man is an island, and you do have to figure out how to live in a world of diminished expectations.  Autarky isn’t possible for an individual, but reducing the links to those who want to control you by holding your lifestyle hostage can only be defeated by taking away your need to defend that lifestyle.