Adapt "usual" recipes and stock "usual"

[Persepone]

This is partially a response to "flavored water" thread. If you normally drink lots of coffee or tea or flavored water or beer or wine or whatever, it would seem to be a very good idea to include some of that in your hurricane kit and possibly make adaptations. For coffee lovers, a small butane or propane hotplate and an old fashioned (manual) coffee pot in the kit would make things a lot more bearable, I'd think. Campmor and REI have special equipment that allows you to make things like espresso coffee, etc. but you can find a regular stainless steel percolator at Wal-Mart (or probably at a tag sale). For those for whom beer, cola, etc. is "standard," I'd nestle some in the ice... Block ice works best for cooling stuff like this. Fill empty milk jugs or cartons and freeze before the storm... Will help to keep your freezer "full" as well as give you ice for your cooler.

I'm also amazed at people who buy the suggested stuff on the published lists when it is something they would NEVER normally eat! If you hate tuna fish when there is no hurricane, you won't like it any better because there is one. So do figure out how to make your favorite meals/comfort foods, etc. or adapt the recipes. Those of you who go camping probably have lots of good suggestions about how to do this, etc.

The community forum has recipes--but perhaps a special thread on "hurricane preparation recipes" might be a good idea. Several people had really good stuff posted last year that sounded like great recipes both for hurricane situations and just regular "good eating"!

Example: the Lipton dried soups (e.g., chicken noodle) assume that you cook long enough to soften the noodles and have them absorb water. But if you put the soup mix in the water and let it sit until the noodles absorb enough water to soften, then you use a lot less fuel to heat. The same is true of most pastas--if you put in enough water to soften--with no heat--and keep adding water until the appropriate softness, then don't have to boil in a lot of "good" water you then have to pour off. Just soften it up with time instead of heat and then add the sauce, and just heat enough to be the right temperature to eat. You'll have to stir so it does not burn, but you won't need lots of water. Pancakes are a great emergency breakfast food and lots of people like them! And if you can find an antique waffle iron to use over a woodstove, it works fine over gas grill, charcoal grill, etc.