Category: Food & Drink

It’s Supermarket Time

Food & Drink, SHTF

I’m not one who gives much credence to doom ‘n gloom predictions like this one.  But this is serious.

At this moment, millions of acres of farmland are underwater, and that is not going to change any time soon. When the flood waters came, they moved so rapidly that they literally picked up pigs and baby calves and carried them along. Roads, rail lines and entire small towns have been washed away, and so even if farmers had something left to sell they couldn’t get it to market anyway.

Just last Friday morning I gave a ride to an executive based out of Omaha, and I kidded her about the flooding in Nebraska.  She said, “It’s no laughing matter.  Omaha hasn’t flooded — yet — but it is essentially a little island in the middle of a state-sized lake.”

And Tyler concludes with this:

Food production in the United States is going to be way, way down this year. Prices at the grocery store are immediately going to start rising, and they are going to keep rising all year long. So now is the best time to stock up and to get prepared for what is coming. Our breadbasket has been absolutely devastated, and things are only going to get worse. The mainstream media seems to think that this is just another in a long string of major natural disasters that has hit our nation in recent years, but the truth is not so simple. This disaster is going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to grow our own food, and even if everything went perfectly from this point forward we are talking about a recovery that would take many, many years.

I believe him, and so should you.  We often talk at this here back porch of mine about SHTF scenarios.  This, I think, is going to be one of them.

So get out to the supermarket — now — and start laying in food supplies.  You all know which kinds to get:  stuff that has a lo-o-o-ng storage life, because there’s no telling just how long it’s going to take to recover from this.

Sure, we’ll probably just import foods from overseas;  but it’ll be costly, and if you think that foreign countries won’t use this catastrophe against us politically, I have a New York bridge to sell you.

Most importantly:  if you’re on a fixed income (as I am), your dollar is going to buy less and less food as prices start to climb.  I have about  three months’ supply of food on hand, and that is never going to be enough.  I already started over the past weekend, and I’m going to be doing it daily from now on.

So get going.

Oh, and I don’t think I need to remind anyone here about keeping your ammo lockers stocked, do I?

More Corporate Nannies

Food & Drink, Nannies, Two-Minute Hate

Here’s a story which provoked an instant RCOB from me:

A supermarket advert that was set to appear on the London Underground was rejected by rail bosses…
The poster, submitted by online food delivery company Farmdrop, featured a family gathered around a kitchen island with the tagline ‘fresher, fairer groceries delivered to your door’.

Here’s the ad’s pic.  Try to spot why the thing was deemed offensive.

No, it wasn’t because one of the actors is a ginger.  Here’s the actual reason the ad was rejected:

…because it contained bacon, butter, eggs and jam.

The only possible way I could have been more angered was if it was banned because it contains a picture of a chicken, and the vegans complained about that  (I know, I shouldn’t give those poxy fuckers any ideas).

There’s only one remedy to overcome my rage at this point:

…and for the toast, some Irish butter and two of my favorite jams:

Bon appetit, y’all.

Unsurprising

Food & Drink

Found via Insty, we see this little snippet:

Judged by a panel of 40 industry experts, Lidl’s [private label] Queen Margot, an eight-year blended Scotch whisky, took home a category win for “Scotch Blended 12 Years & Under.” The whisky beat out some serious competition from industry giants (and far pricier bottles) including Johnnie Walker Black Label. Queen Margot retails for £13.49, or approximately $17.98 USD, proving that good Scotch doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

Blended Scotch isn’t a “premium” product by any stretch of the imagination, so this shouldn’t come as any surprise.  And “taste” is purely subjective, in any case.  (I think the above-mentioned Johnnie Walker Black Label is overpriced for a liquor that tastes like cough medicine mixed with diluted engine oil, for instance, but many people love it.)

For the record, I have two favorite blended Scotches, when I feel like drinking more than one or two shots:  J&B (with lots of ice and water) for a “light” drink, and Famous Grouse for a more substantial, undiluted one.

As Glenn dryly (and correctly) notes:

“The price/value correlation with booze isn’t super-tight.”

Nor with so many other “premium”-styled products, either, e.g. the $300,000+ Rolls Cullinan:

Oh STFU

Food & Drink, Men & Women

I started reading this article because it looked amusing:

Real men don’t crave cheesecake.
In fact, a new study claims that sexy images of the female form leave men hankering for beef and pork.
Researchers behind “Is Meat Sexy?,” published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, tracked more than 1,600 men and women in the US, UK and Australia to explore advertising’s impact on red-meat consumption and how that relates to mating.

And so on.

But it wouldn’t be an academic study without one of the academics slipping in a little slice of bullshit from the Narrative:

“Sexualized images of women can make men eat meat more as a way to increase their masculinity and status, to show them off to the opposite sex,” he says. “[But] since the growing trend of meat consumption harms one’s health and is bad for the environment, sexy ads don’t just sell the latest cologne or clothing — they may have unforeseen consequences.”

And here we are, back to cow farts.

1) Meat consumption harms one’s health — that’s a fucking lie.
2) Meat farming is bad for the environment — that’s another fucking lie — no more than vegetable farming or any other kind of farming is bad for the environment.

I’m getting so sick of academia.

And just to cheer everyone up, here’s a sexualized image.

Now go and eat some meat.

Banzai

Business, Food & Drink

I don’t quite know what to make of all this:

London Pride maker Fuller, Smith & Turner, better known as Fuller’s, is to sell its entire beer business to the European division of Japanese brewer Asahi.
In a deal which values the division at £250million, the London-based brewer will sell the production and distribution of its well-known beers, including its flagship drink London Pride, as well as its ale, stout, porter, craft lager and cider brands.

Considering that London Pride is my second-favorite beer (after Wadworth 6X), I can only hope that Asahi won’t look at Pride’s miniscule U.S. distribution and decide that it’s not worth it.

On the other hand, they might also think that Fuller are a bunch of morons for not getting Pride greater exposure in the U.S., with the result that I could soon buy it at Kroger.

So it’s “wait and see”, not something I typically enjoy doing.

Gah.  I hate  change.

Chippies

Food & Drink

I see that the top 10 list of fish ‘n chip shops in the U.K. has been published.  The one I’m going to make a beeline for the next time I’m Over There is Harbor Lights in Falmouth, Cornwall, because of this pic:

Granted, it may have been a promotional gimmick to get that many people to queue up outside the place, but whatever.

All that said, however, I’m still a huge fan of Sharon’s Plaice, in Boscastle, Cornwall:

…because I have never eaten such good fish ‘n chips before, anywhere.  And yes, the potatoes are locally-sourced (delivered fresh daily) as is the fish, caught right offshore and brought into the harbor.  I hope it survives until my next visit — Boscastle is a small village, and very dependent on tourism to keep its head above water, so any  retail establishment there leads a precarious existence (other than the pubs, of course).