I hope everyone's ready to get a lot sicker a lot more often.

 

It's interesting how little I see from the mainstream food media these days since I stopped using Twitter some months back.

Not that I'm missing anything of substance. The vast majority is fluff pieces, any bits of harder-hitting reporting are elsewhere. Stuff like how desperately doomed most of the food production in the country is as regulatory standards for quality and safety get cut away.

Safe bet that a whoooole lot of people are going to realize how easy it is for foodborne illnesses to find their way into their supper. More than likely while they're dying after contracting them. I know how to prevent them, where to look for them, and how long I have before I start avoiding buying certain things. There's a tier list based on ease of contamination, severity of danger, and a host of other factors that I consider when looking at the months and years ahead. Here's a freebie: Don't buy salad greens.

Alongside this we have the backyard gardeners who have no idea what it's like to actually grow enough food to live off of. People that have never seen how much wheat it takes to mill into flour, and haven't a clue how to do the milling.

I'm lucky to live in a climate where I can grow damn near anything I please, but there's no possible way I could grow enough food to feed myself- I know this because I because I actually know how to do it- something near nobody willing to opine on such things can say.

In Memoriam

You were always game for anything, grinning like a goofus the whole time.

You deserved better last years than the ones I know you had.

That sorrow will stay with me forever.

Goodbye, Tiger. Uncle Wolfy loves you, now and always.

In Theory

...this is supposed to be a mostly profession-oriented blog. I am a master culinarian, recipe developer, teacher, nutritionist, and food safety analyst.

I am also a great deal more than that.

Given the state of things, however, oversharing is dangerous.

Paranoia and pragmatism now means peace of mind later. 

I've got my disaster bag prepped and ready.

Can't save everyone. Don't want to. Shouldn't have to- and most aren't capable of deserving it anyway.

I'll do what I can.

What a mess.

 

All those cuts to Meals on Wheels apparently went out over the last 24 hours or so.

So let me tell you, gentle reader, of the last 48.

Yesterday, I began to track down the family of a senior who died five years ago when mail showed up for her estate. Yes. They died in the first covid wave, amidst so many others. And disappeared. 

Today, I delivered a route, as I always do when a delivery crew fails to show. Someone who I'd spoken to on Monday didn't answer when I knocked. Thinking they might not yet be home, I called their contact number and got family. Poor man was on total life support, surrounded by loved ones. 

He died while I was on the line. I spent the next twenty minutes consoling half a dozen people I've never met as they broke down together.

This is the stuff they're taking away the funding for. Not hard to guess why- beyond the simple cruelty and ignorance, at least. Hungry people get angry, they get aggressive, they get things happening. People like this don't. They're already on the last of their resources. They'll simply fade and die, unknown and forgotten. Often, I joke that the motto of our center should be "Forgotten But Not Gone". I don't forget easily.

"To ignore the plight of those one could conceivably save is not wisdom, it is indolence"

In a world steeped in malice, I think those words ring true for those who seek a better world.

Why? Simple.

"For those we have lost. For those we can yet save."

And so I battle onward. As best I might.