Allyson

There are two main options, should the shit actually ever hit the fan: bugging in, or bugging out. Yes, there are variations to both of those, but that’s essentially your two choices in their most basic form. I’ve talked about bugging in a bit, and about hiding in forests and building shelters and such. But what about bugging out?

If you’ve decided (for whatever reason) to leave your home during an emergency, you have to address the issue of travel. Near as I can tell, you have a very limited number of methods to travel in the average bug out situation:

• your vehicle
• a non-motorized method of transport (ie a bicycle, unicycle, scooter, skateboard, etc.)
• riding an animal (horse, llama, sheep, yak, whatever)
• walking

Your vehicle, be it a car, truck, camper van, or motorcycle, is probably your first thought. I know it’s mine. My car already has a bug out bag in it, and in winter there’s always a 72 hour survival bucket stashed in the back, just in case. Your vehicle (other than the motorcycle, for the most part) is also a type of shelter, somewhere to be secure with doors locked, out of the rain and wind and snow, with at least somewhat comfortable sleeping arrangements. You can also cart things with you in a vehicle, such as food, clothing, emergency shelter like tents and tarps, first aid items, and weapons with ammo.

There’s a major drawback with vehicles, though. They run on fuel. If you run out of fuel, you stop. Now, if you carry a siphon kit (and I do recommend it, because sucking gas out of a tank without one is a very unpleasant thing indeed, and no I don’t want to talk about it), you can remove fuel from other vehicles. If the movies (and images of war torn countries) are reliable, you’ll probably find abandoned cars and trucks at the side of (or in the middle of) the roads. These can be checked for abandoned fuel, depending on your situation, and you can take from them if they have any.

You can carry extra fuel with you, though you may want to be careful about how you do that. You shouldn’t really carry fuel inside a vehicle, and if you have it on the outside, you’re advertising to everyone that you have fuel to spare. Whether it’s FEMA, desperate parents, or raiders, you could lose that extra fuel if you stop. Disguising it (fuel canisters inside empty suitcases?) might be your best bet, along with securing them with locks, and protecting yourself and your gear using firearms.

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So here I am. The waters have retreated and I’m standing on dry beach, and all these new people are standing around and near me. I’m being welcomed, and it all seems very friendly. I want to let my guard down. I really do. But damn, folks, it’s HARD.

Recently, I had a conversation with Chris about birth control. We all know that “just don’t have sex” doesn’t work, and hasn’t worked since before written history. I was explaining that to me, it just makes sense that if you want a low abortion rate (which I do), then the answer is to have effective, inexpensive, low side-effect birth control. Preferably, you want several types, too, so that people have choices, and so that men and women both can be involved in being responsible.

I pointed out that there are many people on the Right who advocate eradicating both abortion AND birth control, and I want to know why. Why is that so important, to remove birth control from people? It makes no sense to me.

I admit, I may have said to Chris that a good portion of unwanted babies (via rape and incest, for example) all have come about because of men. Women don’t rape men and then get upset over getting pregnant (or there are so few that I’ve not only never read about it, I’ve never even heard a whisper about it) and become so emotional that they require an abortion. That makes men the problem. This is, of course, a grand simplification of the issue and removes franchise from women, which is not cool. But the idea is there, and it’s not a wrong idea, it’s just that it’s too vague as currently stated. Chris’s response was, of course, that men who commit incest or diddle little girls should be fed through a wood chipper on low speed, feet first, wearing a tourniquet. I heartily agree with him on that one.

But that doesn’t address the birth control issue. The worst part is, I don’t even really know how to ask the question, or what to say to get a reasonable (ie truthful, meaningful, statistically relevant) answer. How many people on the Right are interested in legislating or otherwise taking away the right to use birth control? This is not a question about paying for it, by the by. I know there’s insurance issues and all that. That’s not a part of what I’m after here. For the purposes of this line of questioning, you can assume that everyone pays up front cash for their birth control. How do I find out whether the Left is correct about this issue?

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Last week I cooked up a turkey breast that had been lurking in the freezer for a while. It was a lovely treat, and we really enjoyed it. However, with just a few of us here at the house these days, even cooking up just a breast is a bit much. I decided I would make turkey pot pies out of the leftovers, some of which we’d eat right away, and some that could go in the freezer. The grocery store was sadly lacking in pie crusts, and I’m just not great at making them. So I decided to try Turkey a la King, because it was sort of an inside out turkey pie. The end result was incredibly delicious, and we really enjoyed it! I hope you do, too.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter or margarine
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, peeled, finely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 5 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1-1/2 cups milk (oatmilk also works)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1-1/2 lbs cooked turkey breast, cut into 1″ chunks
• 1 cup frozen peas or mixed vegetables
• 1/2 cup mashed potatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• Warm biscuits or puff pastry shells for serving

In a large skillet or cast iron pot, melt the butter over medium high heat. When the butter is bubbling slightly and is completely melted, add in the carrot, onion, and celery. Cook for about ten minutes, until the vegetables are softened.

Add in the flour, and quickly stir to coat all the vegetables as evenly as you can. Immediately whisk in the broth, milk, and salt and pepper. Add the liquid slowly while whisking rapidly throughout, to achieve a silky smooth finish. This part should take about five minutes to complete. Add in the turkey, potato, and peas, and stir occasionally until the dish is warmed through, about ten more minutes.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add mushrooms, onion, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring often, until softened, 8 to 10 minutes.

Serve the turkey mixture over top of the biscuits or puff pastry shells, and sprinkle with a bit of fresh minced parsley for color and flavor.

Notes:
So traditionally, this would be made with 8 oz or so of sliced mushrooms. I didn’t have any on hand, so this is my version of the more traditional recipe. I used an old fashioned biscuit recipe for this, but you could do any biscuits, including the “quick” ones on a box of Bisquick.

If you find that your finished product isn’t thick enough, you can fix it in one of three ways. First, you can use the traditional route, which is to make a roux in another pan and then add the roux to the boiling turkey mixture. Stir well, and it should thicken. Second, you can make a slurry (a tablespoon of flour or cornstarch with just enough cold water to make a thin paste) and add that to the boiling turkey mixture. Stir, and it should thicken up. The third, and inarguably the easiest method, is to add a teaspoon or so of potato flakes to the mixture. Simply sprinkle potato flakes on top of the boiling turkey  mixture, and then stir. Continue to add more potato flakes a little at a time until the desired thickness is achieved.

When people begin to prep, there’s this mental thing that happens… they begin to store things in buckets. For some, it’s cat litter buckets. For others, it’s the big white buckets you can often get for free at grocery stores. They’re usually five gallon size, and they have a hard plastic exterior which is difficult for mice to chew through, and a plastic handle that’s decently rugged. The cat litter ones are usually more squarish in shape, which is great for holding ammo, candles, square tins (like Spam), and the like. The white ones are round, and are awesome for rice, wheat, lentils, coffee, etc.

For me, the five gallon bucket was too small after a while. I started getting piles of the things, and I didn’t like it. So I switched from those to Sterelite bins, the light grey ones. Those are alright, but if you stack them more than two high and they’re heavy, they will buckle under the weight. Those were replaced with good quality rigid Rubbermaid bins. The Rubbermaids last, have mouse proof (so far at least, and we’re talking ten years or more in a farm house with tons of mice) exteriors, and a decent seal at the top as well. You can stack them three high if they’re heavy, and four high if you make the top one light.

Once I reached the bin stage in my prepping, I began making single-item bins. This bin was labelled “rice” and contained countless smaller bags or boxes of rice. That one was labelled “wheat” and another was “beans.” You get the general idea. I thought this was an amazing idea! Everything was neat, labelled, easy to find… just perfect.

And then we had an emergency with a power loss of a few days. Suddenly, I had to find our emergency stores in the dark, in the basement. I had to crack 5 gallon buckets and big plastic bins to take out one or two things, and then seal them up again. It wasn’t fun. It made carrying things up the stairs more difficult. I got frustrated.

Now, I make multi-purpose bins. One bin sits in the hallway, tucked into a quiet corner. Each grocery trip, I pick something up and stash it in the bucket. I make sure each bucket has a good mix of protein (canned meat and fish, powdered eggs, peanut butter, a can of nuts, and you name it), carbs (instant potatoes, rice, pasta, flour), and fats (mostly in the form of natural fats in the cans of meat and fish, but sometimes I find canned butter and the like, and also small bottles of vegetable or olive oil). Toss in some paper plates, matches, a P-38 can opener, some fuel and one of the folding mini stoves, along with plastic forks or spoons and a couple of mags of ammo, and you’re all set. Each bucket is self-contained. I can grab ANY bucket, and know it has a bit of everything, and that it’ll be just different enough from the next bucket to ensure my family doesn’t get bored with single-flavor nutrition.

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I watched the devastation of Helene as it tore through the Carolinas region. Entire towns are gone, and when I say gone, I mean they no longer exist. They are buried beneath rubble and mud in a level of destruction not seen (IMO) since the Galveston hurricane of 1900. I have heard reports of over 300 dead, and I think that’s ridiculously low. I know that the “official” number is currently 95 (as of this writing, 10/15/24), per NCDHHS. That number is just offensive. People on the ground are stating bluntly that they’ve seen piles of bodies.

Milton, too, was a force to be reckoned with, especially right after Helene. It spared the Carolinas, but hit Florida, and did so hard. I’ve heard of 17 deaths so far, and it’s well reported. There are news people in Florida, walking through the very wet, sometimes partially submerged neighborhoods. A number of houses are demolished, thanks to the tornadoes spawned during Milton’s arrival.

These two disasters are NOT the same. Please know, I’m not meaning to disparage any of the people involved in either hurricane. To anyone who has helped, in any way, you deserve kudos, love, support, and praise. But the response is just not the same, and the disasters are of entirely different levels.

Just as an example, “FEMA has approved more than $96 million in housing and other types of assistance for over 75,000 households.” (FEMA) and “FEMA has approved more than $177.6 million for over 56,900 households.” That means in NC, each of the households has gotten about $1280. In Florida, each household has gotten about $3093.

What?

And that’s just the reported stuff, right from FEMA’s website, which is probably quite biased. Florida, which wasn’t hit even remotely as hard, which hasn’t been rocked by watching loved ones swept away by violent mudslides they had NO warning of, have gotten more than twice what the folks in NC have gotten.

And people wonder why the folks in NC are “hunting FEMA” right now?

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Squash soups are a favorite of mine. Because dairy and I don’t get along, I can’t indulge in my favorite chowders anymore (I don’t care what anyone says, chowder made with oatmilk is just not the same). Squash soups can be blended to give an impression of being creamy, when there’s not even a drizzle of dairy in them. Also, if you do need to add a bit of milk for flavor, oatmilk will do just fine because it’s a background thing and not the star. This is my recipe for Hubbard squash soup, and it’s really delicious. It’s great when you have to feed a crowd, because a single of these odd colored squashes is enough to feed a family of 20. Today you can get smaller ones, and indeed, my local grocery store has Hubbard squashes that are about the size of an acorn squash, but there’s something wonderful about using a huge Hubbard squash. They look like they belong in the Jurassic period. LOL!

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs squash peeled and cubed
• 3 onions diced
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup protein, boiled then minced
• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp each of cinnamon & ginger, mixed together

Add the squash and onions to your broth, and bring it to a full, rolling boil. Reduce the heat and cook until the squash is tender. If you want a “creamy” soup, cook until it’s falling apart soft, and if you prefer a more clear broth with chunks, stop when just tender to the fork.

Your protein can be pork, chicken, or even vegetarian options such as seitan or walnuts. Boil meat until it’s very soft and falling apart (think pulled pork consistency) and then shred it with a fork or mince it up into very small pieces. Stir this into the soup along with the egg yolks and salt. Stir gently, then allow to cook for a few minutes.

When putting out the soup, set the sugar and spice mixture on the side in a small bowl, with spoons. Allow people to season to their own taste.

Serve this soup as a first course to a feast, or offer it with a salad and a more substantial meat.

I make considerably more of this recipe than is called for, because it freezes well and I like having convenient lunches I can just pop into the microwave later. A large batch takes the same amount of time and effort as a small batch, so why not “go big”?

Notes:

When I make this, I use 10 cups of broth and about 5 or 6 pounds of cut up squash. I use one very large Spanish onion and one regular sized cooking onion. I also like it to be meaty and hearty, as it’s usually all we’re going to eat, so I use about 3 or 4 cups of shredded chicken. I increase the egg yolks to 3, to thicken the soup, making it much more “creamy” or “silky” in texture. I used Himalayan Pink Salt, about 1.5 tsp, and a sprinkle of pepper on the top of each served bowl of soup.

This soup is incredibly thick and hearty, much moreso than you might think.  When my kids were younger, I used to make this a lot. They  suggested that the squash was kind of lost in the broth, and that it tasted rather like chicken noodle soup. This is a plus, in my opinion, as the soup was full of all sorts of good things for the kids that they wouldn’t normally eat. I’m all for hiding the good stuff in yummy dishes!

My newest cookbook is now available!

Clay pots are probably the oldest cookware known to humans. Since not long after we harnessed fire, we’ve been learning new and improved ways to make cooking vessels, and clay was an obvious early choice. When fired, it’s hard, heat resistant, and heat retaining. It holds liquids and solids equally well. And best, clay can be pressed into any shape. This small cookbook covers five recipes from each of five different time periods: Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Medieval, 18th Century American, and modern day. Each uses a clay cooking vessel, be it pot, pipkin, tagine, or pan. They are tasty additions to any modern menu, while still touching on the history of early human cooking. M. Allyson Szabo is the author of The Re-Enactor’s Cookbook, and Cook Small, Live Large! Her interest in all things historical and kitchen oriented has served her well, and she produces cookbooks that enlighten and educate with a conversational flair. Readers at all levels of cooking can enjoy her books!

So I don’t usually toot my own horn here on the blog, but I did want to post this up because it lends itself well to prepping and how to cook during an emergency. While the recipes in the book are a bit fancier than you’re likely to make during a major emergency, the methods you’ll learn will be useful.

If you can find clay, you can make pots. Once you have pots, you can cook. You can boil water to make sure it’s safe to drink. You can wash, shave, do dishes. The book doesn’t go into how one makes pots, but there are tons of amazing YouTube videos and articles on the subject that you can tap into.

There are lots of different types of shelter that we have access to. As with most things “prepper” related, everyone has a couple of opinions, and many of them clash. Basically, the idea is that you should have access to some kind of shelter in the first three hours of an emergency. It’s a good target to aim for, but it requires a lot of forethought and/or skill to pull it off.

The first kind of shelter that most of us have is our home. If you can stay at home, you probably should. Your home has all your food, your beds, your comfort items, and you know it. If you’re the type of person who’s been prepping a while, you probably have a plan in place for how to keep your home safe from raiders or marauders, and so that makes it one of the safest places you can be. A roof with four walls and a stout door really does trump most other types of shelter.

What if your home isn’t available, though? Whether it’s because you’ve been caught out when the emergency occurred, or a flash flood has washed away your home, or a tornado has ripped it into shreds, or any other reason, home is no longer safe. Your next easiest (and possibly safest, in many cases) form of shelter is your vehicle. You can cover the windows for privacy, you can lock the doors, and it’s mobile so you can move it to a safer place if things get hairy wherever you are. Your car also has the ability to hump more goods than you can by yourself. Again, it’s a fairly warm place (at least in comparison with outside), the doors lock, and it’s yours. You can formulate a plan around your vehicle long before you ever need it.

With your home and vehicle out of the picture, what else can you do? Well, that depends a lot on your strength, ingenuity, where you are, the time of year/weather/temperature, and lots of other things.

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So there I was, happily standing slightly left of middle, when people around me started doing weird stuff. First, it was making statements that bothered me. Stuff like calling me a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist), which is so far from the mark as to be almost funny. I was told that I don’t understand what it’s like to be LGBTetc. I just can’t possibly get it because I’m so normal.

Folks, these things were coming from people who’ve known me in real life, face to face, for about a decade. They know I’m pansexual (ie bisexual but really I don’t care what you stash in your slacks). They know I’m pagan. They know I’m poly. They know I’m kinky. They know I’ve had lovers of many types (men, women, and people who don’t really fit comfortably into either of the first two categories). They know I come from Hungarian stock (ie Magyar, a group who were and sometimes still are persecuted) on one side, and Scottish (a group historically persecuted) on the other. If you want to get down to brass tacks, I’m a charter member of some of those alphabet soup groups. I’m old enough that I remember when the kink community was still ruled largely by the gay men and their families.

I’m also apparently sexist, homophobic, and racist.

All of this is said of me because I decided to comment (sometimes face to face, and sometimes online) about things going on in the world. Stuff like how I don’t think you should force the word “cis” on someone, just like you (that particular group) don’t want various pronouns forced on you. Somehow, it’s always “just not the same.” And so I’m a traitor to my race, to my gender, to my country.

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