State of the Nineveh - pre-parental tidying

[nineveh_uk]

My parents are due to arrive on Thursday. Naturally I have thus spent a substantial proportion of the non-work element of the past couple of days cleaning and tidying. What I resent about this is that it isn't like my parents' current state of impressively spick and span was the norm when I was living at home! We were reasonably clean and tidy in the way that I am reasonably clean and tidy, and yet when they visit now I feel I must be in a state of perfect cleanliness, and that tidiness that can be achieved by shoving everything in drawers... Though I did have a useful hour at the weekend reducing two boxes of collage fodder/memento papers to one, thus allowing me to put emergency Brexit pasta supplies in the other. I have almost reached the point of thinking it is time to buy the tinned fish. Almost. Honestly, I think that one might just go by. Instead I am doing what is surely the archetypal middle-class Brexit panic and buying extra olive oil, and discount Green & Blacks. I am on holiday for a week in mid-March*, I can't leave it to chance!

On the plus side I have got to do this to the Alpine skiing world championships, which saw that very rare phenomenon in sports: two great competitors get to go out on a high with a medal, and yet not too early either. It is impossible not to like Aksel Lund Svindal. Lindsay Vonn I have to admit I find rather harder to appreciate - among other things, she has had times of being an obviously bad loser, which is never attractive in a person who wins a great deal - but she deserves significant credit for being prepared to say frankly she would refuse an invitation to the Trump White House prior to the Olympics, and dealing with the inevitable large amount of flak for it. And her talent and skill speaks for itself.

So, farewell runs to both.

"Aksel Lund Svindal | Silver Medal | Men's Downhill | Are | FIS World Alpine Ski Championships" (Watch on YouTube)

"Lindsey Vonn | Bronze Medal | Ladies' Downhill | Are | FIS World Alpine Ski Championships" (Watch on YouTube)

*And checking the webcam obsessively, of course.

ETA: Tidying the bedside/medicine cabinet. I'm definitely not going to need to stockpile medicine, I seem to have a habit of making sure I have a fresh packet of paracetamol/plasters every time I go on holiday...

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

time to buy the tinned fish. Almost. Honestly, I think that one might just go by

I'm going to get a couple of jars of anchovies. Quite good for improving pasta sauces (well, they are if you like anchovies).

[nineveh_uk]

I fear you have identified the fundamental problem... I might get one jar in case of desperation, since at least I would be in control of the amount added and could make it miniscule.

[white_hart]

Surely it would be better to save the space to stockpile something you do like? (I like anchovies in theory but recently something about the combination of oily and salty seems to make me feel a bit sick, so I am not planning to stockpile them. Perhaps I should go for capers instead - same saltiness but less slimy.)

[nineveh_uk]

This is true. I just sort of feel one ought to have anchovies. And I foresee the prospect of getting very bored of tinned tomato based pasta sauces!

[perennialanna]

One does indeed get very bored of tinned tomato based pasta sauces. Or at least I have done, but the children haven't.

Parmesan can be grated straight from frozen (rather more readily than if kept in the fridge) and keeps much longer that way; a whole chorizo or salami keeps for a very long time in the fridge and cheers up the tinned tomatoes no end.

[antisoppist]

Last night's tea was tinned tomatoes, chorizo and chickpeas and I was thinking this is nice but we shouldn't be eating it now because we may have to live on it for months.

I am not stockpiling cheese because my little sister is currently manufacturing it and I am assuming she might perhaps post me some in a national emergency.

[nineveh_uk]

Chorizo would be a very good option. I have also got olives.

[antisoppist]

I have two jars (and the half jar in my fridge) but I really really like anchovies. I don't think you should stockpile things you hate either, but if you wind up with a surfeit, I will take them off your hands.

But if they are just for flavour if you've got to live on bowls of pasta, and you don't actually like the flavour, I'd go for those jars of Easy chillies/ginger/garlic instead (I have those too, partly because Son is currently putting Easy Chillies on everything).

[nineveh_uk]

I am switching from anchovies to chorizo. I was vaguely thinking that they count as protein, but not if you only have a quarter of one in your pasta sauce, they don't.

I hadn't thought of those jars of things. I ought to have them all the time, really!

[white_hart]

Honestly, olive oil and chocolate seem to me to be two of the most important things to stockpile (along with the pasta) because they come from outside the UK and are therefore vulnerable to disruption at the ports.

Our stockpile mostly seems to be tinned tomatoes and canned pulses right now.

[perennialanna]

I generally stockpile loo roll, because it is one of the things my parents buy me from Costco and it comes in packs of 48 rolls (nearly a years' worth). 85% of loo roll is imported, apparently, though I feel this is probably more in antisoppist's area of expertise after all these years of paper mills. Coffee filter papers are also all imported, so they're on my list (I'm fine for ground coffee, they also buy me catering sized packs of Lavazza at Costco whenever they go and I have quite a lot at the moment).

[nineveh_uk]

I had read that and now have more than usual, but it takes so much space.

Damn this is RIDICULOUS! If a labour government had brought us to a point of considering stockpiling loo roll, there have been an mi5 coup by now.

[alithea]

So much this. But apparently when the Tories are the ones shafting the country, it's patriotic.

[caulkhead]

Coffee! I hadn't thought about coffee (and I bet most of it comes in through Germany, because for some reason Hamburg has the world's largest coffee terminal).

[antisoppist]

I have just taken the kids' stuff down to their father and his kitchen table has a cardboard box on it. He seems to be going for corned beef, tinned steak and a lot of tinned fruit. Between us the kids will be fine but I am glad I am not in the house with All The Corned Beef myself.

We have a butcher's up the road who sells meat from their family farm further up the road. I am assuming I might be able to get the odd chunk of beef from time to time.

[caulkhead]

M's Italian colleagues have apparently seriously discussed buying a whole wheel of parmesan between them.

[nineveh_uk]

Now there's a way to starve the ERG out. That and requisitioning private stocks of champagne.

[nineveh_uk]

Happily they both last! I thought of olive oil because the price is volatile anyway, and chocolate is essential. Otherwise I am in a very similar place to you. I'm giving it a week or so before I stock the freezer. Fresh veg is of course going to be the problem.

[alithea]

I also have tinned toms, pulses and fruit so far, must get around to the olive oil and chocolate soon. I suspect I'm going to be very grateful to live in the main arable cropping area of Scotland if things do go pear-shaped - we may need to drive out to the farm and pick it ourselves but fresh veg shouldn't be a huge problem.

[clanwilliam]

I cleared the local shop out of Turkish macaroni yesterday. Admittedly, only four bags, and they were doing them at two for £1.50. (I like Turkish macaroni - it cooks quickly as well, which is handy if there's power interruptions.) I also broke my rule on the buying smaller bags in the case of rice, and got a 2kg bag as it came with a Useful Tin.

I'm doing smaller bags since it's just me and G, and it means I'm not trying to cope with a sack of something. They're also more useful for donating to a food bank if everything turns out to be okay.

But pretty much I'm doing a snow plan, rather than anything major, on the grounds that I can just get the hell out of the country pretty easily. So a lot of what I'm stocking is also the stuff that you cook to warm up in snowy weather.

Stock cubes (or Marigold buillon) and I'm going to have some dried veg. If it all goes tits up, food will be fairly monotonous, but we'll be fed.

[nineveh_uk]

I've not come across Turkish macaroni before. I have to admit I've been kind of ignoring the power question.

I'm not doing a really major stock. Basically, I don't want to be in supermarkets with limited stock and/or worried people in late March/April, and I don't want afterwards to be spending loads of money on imported staples that I can buy now before the pound crashes.

I am kind of thinking that I should make sure I always have enough petrol in the tank to reach the Scottish border, though. Worst case scenario, Holyrood can declare independence and I'll attempt some "reuniting family" thing!

[clanwilliam]

All my local shops are Turkish or Cypriot or Kurdish, so the veg selection is magnificent. Turkish macaroni is exactly the same as Italian macaroni, but appears to have a slightly quicker cooking time. And it goes with absolutely everything.

[azdak]

I'm utterly gobsmacked to find you all casually discussing what you're stockpiling. The insanity of Brexit has now officially reached Kafkaesque levels.

On a totally different level of importance, I happened to watch an episode of Marie Kondo on Netflix (Captain Awkward had mentioned her so I was curious)and to my astonishment found myself leaping out of bed for the next week or so to clear out and fold and organise. My house is unrecognisably tidy and I can now find everything I want at a single glance. They should set Marie Kondo loose on the Houses of Parliament. ("British people, make a pile of all your MPs. Keep only the ones that spark joy. The rest you can thank and let go. Thank them for teaching you that you don't like MPs like this.")

[nineveh_uk]

Kafkaesque it is. As I was waiting for a work meeting to begin today, people were discussing the supply of toilet rolls. The PM is mad, and all the parties are incapable of getting beyond their perceived short term interests. If you had a nanosecond's doubt you made the right decision, it should long be over.

Congratulations on your ultra tidy house! I haven't yet watched the Marie Kondo show, but I've read one of her books (spare copy lent by friends who were so untidy they lost the first before they could apply it...) and started sorting some things out and it's amazing how helpful it has been even on a small scale. She does seem to strike a nerve with an awful lot of us. I would happily let her sort out Parliament. Perhaps she could throw the unwanted MPs in the Thames.