Have you ever noticed when some thing is a horrid job or when we are wanting to make something every day sound fancy we use foreign words. Mise en place, a fancy way of saying prepared, to get ready. I learnt this phrase as a teenager, not in school, but in my Saturday job as waitress. To make your shift better, you prepared all the cutlery, shining it and getting all your table linens in you station for a quick turn around and hopefully a little extra tip. Mise en place.
Today whilst some more people wandered around my home with the view to buying it (one dirty great builder who didn't take his shoes off and has tramped mud on to my stairs and landing, let alone the bedrooms, grrrr!), I walked into town. I would normally have ridden my bike but after my near miss the other week I have a slight kink in the front wheel and the front forks don't look completely straight. I will at some point load it into the car and take it to be fixed, but until then my two feet are good enough... Anyways, I don't normally browse, as I like to get in and get what is needed and get out.
It was all a bit weird. I feel discombobulated. d.i.s.c.o.m.b.u.l.a.t.e.d.
You would have thought with the amount of houses we have bought and sold I would be used to it. I am. But I feel very *gesticulates wildly*, 'free to the wind'. I cant explain it, I cant find words.
As we are (hopefully) moving we have been running down our stores. When I used to open my cupboards it was like a mini supermarket not unlike the scene from the film, Sleeping with the Enemy. where all the labels faced forward and everything was in sections. Having this 'Stock' makes/made me feel safe. My own mise en place for being slightly prepared.
Call me a prepper, call me crazy, call me what you want. My little store is complete piece of mind and an area of my life I can control. So, this afternoon I am doing a stock take, and then I am off to the supermarket to restock. I can no longer take it. I don't care if I have to do 2 trips to the new house with my stock. I have to have it. My friend has agreed that if there are buy one get one free offers she will go halves with me.
I dream of my new house and my pantry and the storage shelves and rotation system.
I daren't use the word 'Prepping' near some of my family. They get twitches in their eyes and then they glaze over. So now I am going to call myself 'Domestically Primed'.
Do you have a stock in your house for lean times?
(p.s. I saw tinned basic range chopped tomatoes in Sainsburys at 40p each. and then I saw in the world food aisle in Tescos, the same weight tinned chopped tomatoes, 4 cans for £1. That is a 15 pence saving. Since when did tomatoes go from 31p a can to 40? Utter madness.)
11 comments:
We always have vegetables in the plot and we often buy a sack (half) of potatoes in Winter. If you want to have lots in for Christmas, why not get a box or empty cupboard and each week buy a few extra tins for it?
Hey Dave. I would normally buy items exactly like that. 2 or 3 cans extra a week.
We are down to levels of 2 cans of chopped tomatoes and 1 can of tuna fish. NO PASTA. What? I lived like that as a child with my parents scrapping by. I now have to be in control and have things there else it plays with my head. Just shows you what baggage you carry from your childhood doesn't it.
You know me. I have a few things around the house.....
Of course you feel discombobulated. Who wouldn't, moving from one place to another. I think having a secure home is important to any human being. It's the one place on earth where you can still feel in control.
There's an English Prepper I like, who has a good blog. You would enjoy his posts, because he is very nonchalant about being a prepper. I'll get his URL for you .
Here it is:
http://www.englishhomestead.com/
His name is Kev Alviti.
Hey Harry, yeah Kev's blog is good isn't it. I especially like it when he grows strange fruit and veg that I never would have thought you could in out climate.
He blogs more regularly now he is a house husband.
lets hope we can sort a new house soon.
Nope - every day I spend about £30 at my corner-shop, Waitrose.
Oh, for God's sake - stop making us wait to see if you will do us the honour of allowing a comment on your blog - don't you know that everyone needs and expects instant gratification?
Right now we have three bags of chicken nuggets. :-\
Tom, £30 a day! Wow. Sorry its either this or that word verification thing that other people hate.
Susie, chicken nuggets? do you have all the sauces? LOL
By prepping you mean stocking up, right? We have pretty good stocks of everything in our kitchen, and a good stock of spare light bulbs and batteries, but mostly we just take things as they come and buy stuff when it's needed. Jenny's more of a stocker-upper than me. If there are less than 20 toilet rolls in the house, she gets very fidgety.
Hey Nick, you cant run our of toilet paper it is a sin when you are over 30 to not have enough for at least 2 months! lol
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