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There is snow in the forecast. 

I went out today to get a haircut. I needed one. And Thursday is my usual day. And then I went to Walmart in an effort to avoid the Snow Panic. I usually go in the evening after the gym, and usually on Friday night, although sometimes Thursday night and occasionally Saturday night. 

It’s really hard to figure out what the Walmart crowd is going to be on any given day or night; not that I’ve made a science of it. It’s mostly casual observation.  One Friday night the place will be full of the fattest, ugliest, unhealthiest, un-educated-est, hillbilly-est people you’ve ever seen in your life. And the next Friday night it seems like the local high school cheerleader squad picked their hottest members to do public service grocery shopping for the aforementioned. Or maybe it’s just a local beautification project. You know: “Keep America Beautiful: Stay Home!”

It’s hard to know how typical today is. But if today is any indication, Thursday afternoons are old folks day. I’ve never seen so many old, decrepit, slow moving (physically and mentally) people. “Get out of my way Grandpa!”. And before you jump on my ass, I’ll be 68 years of age (I didn’t say “old”) this spring. (So I can say that.) 

It is interesting that we say “68 years OLD”. It kind of emphasizes the “OLD” part.. Of course if you’re being clever, or annoying, or self righteous, you’ll say I am “68 years YOUNG”, which just sounds like delusion and denial. The Spanish speakers say “I have 68 years”, with perhaps an implied “under my belt”. For a lot of folks that would be a very literal statement. They do seem to collect their years “under their belt”. And again, before you jump on my ass with your body positivity, I’ve spent my share of time putting undue stress on my bathroom scale. Anyway, “I have 68 years” certainly carries less emotion. Just the facts, Jack.

Anyway, my trip to Walmart was replete with slow moving grannies, pushy personal shoppers (I hate these people), and empty shelves!

WTF people? This is how and why so many cultural movements and political campaigns work. People act in unthinking hysteria to perceived threats. And I say perceived, because they don’t seem to give them much thought. I was in the DFW area for Snowmaggedon 2022. Everything was cancelled for a week. We were holed up (I had to check the spelling) – we were holed up for a week. Last year, on 01/15/2024, Corinth, MS got 6-8” of snow. The temperature stayed in the teens for a week, the snow stayed on the ground, and I stayed home. Those were the worst, and longest, winter storm events I’ve experienced in my almost 50 years of living in the South. I didn’t starve. And I didn’t have to wipe my ass with old magazine pages (which would have been a problem since most of my subscriptions are online!)

There is a winter storm warning for Thursday night come Friday morning. But the forecast also calls for temperatures in the 40s immediately after. We will probably be housebound for a day or two. I have a Jeep that’s been to the ski areas of New Mexico and Colorado. Snowbound for me doesn’t mean I can’t get out. It means there’s not a reason to go out compelling enough to risk banging up my Jeep in a slick road accident.  

The best reasonable, educated guess is we’ll be holed up Friday and Saturday. That’s not much cause for panic. But I did go to Walmart early on Thursday in anticipation of a “panic”. I did not buy anything at Walmart that I would not have bought on a normal visit. I just moved my visit up a day to avoid what I assumed would be panic motivated crowds Thursday evening.  

I actually found most of what I was looking for. I didn’t get peanut butter. There was no “Great Value” peanut butter on the shelves. There were a few jars of name brand on the shelves. But I don’t buy name brand. It’s too sweet and it costs too much. The vegetable oil shelf was empty. I did get a bottle of EVOO. That’s what I mostly use and what was on my shopping list. But let me repeat, the vegetable oil shelf was wiped out! A Walmart employee and I had a laugh about that. How much oil can you use in two or three days? The bread shelves were empty too. Well, except the whole grain section. So the squishy white bread shelves were empty. I kid you not, there were people picking up loaves of whole grain bread and inspecting it like it was something from another planet. Some were even calling home to ask loved ones for advice. I do find it interesting that here in Mississippi (I had to spell that out at least once because, well it’s just fun!) – Here in Mississippi, the cardiac health capital of the U.S., all the ultraprocessed white bread was gone, and folks were fondling the whole grain bread like it was something one would only eat in a dire emergency. I grabbed a loaf of my favorite whole grain bread. It can be hard to find on my weekly trips. 

I didn’t go down every aisle. I didn’t look at the toilet paper section. I heard that the bottled water aisle was empty too, but bottled water was not on my list. The sugar shelves were not empty, by they were very depleted. The produce aisle was well stocked. Hey, I get to spell it again: Mississippi! I was mostly shopping for produce. 

I have two (partial) loaves of bread in my freezer. I have several jars of peanut butter on my shelves. I have rice, pasta, canned beans, and oats on my shelves. I have five gallon bottles of water, and a half case of 0.5L bottled water on my shelves. (I use tap water daily.) I have Corn Oil, Vegetable Oil, Grapeseed Oil, and Olive Oil on my shelves. I have two dozen eggs in my refrigerator (farm eggs, not grocery store). I’m not a prepper – that’s just normal pantry stuff, with maybe a dash of boy scout “be prepared” thrown in. I can make a week, probably several without being hungry or thirsty. (And if you run out of water, there’s 6” of it out in your yard.)  Am I that much “smarter than the average bear”?

So why do people run out in a panic and clear the shelves of toilet paper, bottled water, vegetable oil, peanut butter, and white bread? I go back to that conversation with the Walmart employee. How much vegetable oil can you consume in three days? Did I mention Mississippi (yay!) is the cardiac health capital of the U.S. 

I have a theory: Deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Kids off from school? Here’s our menu suggestion: 

Breakfast: Deep fried peanut butter and Jelly sandwich 

Lunch: Deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Dinner: TWO deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Dessert: Deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich – extra jelly (maybe on top with a little powered sugar)? 

Many mornings I eat peanut butter with half a banana and honey on whole wheat bread for breakfast. One day maybe I’ll slap a top piece of whole wheat on top and deep fry that shit. And you know, the bacon aisle was empty too. A couple of pieces of crispy bacon might just be the pièce de résistance. Deep fried peanut butter, bacon, banana, and honey on whole wheat (because we want to be healthy). 

Next winter storm forecast, I’m hitting the bacon aisle before the slow moving old folks.  

One final note: I don’t know about the toilet paper aisle. I’m not sure what two or three days of deep fried PB&J is going to do to you. You might want to pick up a bottle of mineral oil along with that 24 pack of toilet paper, just to be safe.  

Really? An “Everything Bagel” flour tortilla? 

I found this on the shelf when I was looking for corn tortillas. 

You know what I couldn’t find? Corn tortillas; simple corn tortillas.

Why exactly would you want an “Everything Bagel” tortilla? Are you confused? Are you not sure if you’re craving a bagel or a taco? Are you not sure if you’re feeling North East or South West? Are you not concerned that the hot sauce and cilantro will clash with your everything bagel flavor?

But here’s the important part. You know what I couldn’t find? A freakin’ corn tortilla! Just a plain old fashioned traditional, like they’ve made in Mexico since before Mexico was Mexico, corn tortilla; like corn tortillas that have been around for more than 10,000 years! They’ve been pushed off the shelf by the corporate machine that strives to lure you with ever increasing stimulation, with spiraling food addiction. 

How do you feed the addicts who no longer respond to the normal dose? You increase the dose. You move on to bigger stimulation  You up the ante with the Everything Bagel flour tortillas!

Have we been so bombarded with excess that a plain old corn tortilla no longer has a place on our table?

You know what else I couldn’t find? Yogurt. Yeah, you know what I’m gonna say: Plain old yogurt; plain old fashioned, whole milk yogurt. Just yogurt dammit!

I’ve spent weeks looking for plain old yogurt; just cultured whole milk yogurt. Sure, I can find low fat, and no fat. I can find Chobani Flip Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt. I can find YoCrunch low fat vanilla with M&Ms yogurt. 

Stop! Low fat with M&Ms? What the ****? Do I need to explain this?

There’s yogurt with Oreos! And Low Fat Pumpkin Crisp yogurt. And OikosTriple Zero, 15g Protein, Nonfat Banana Cream, Greek Yogurt Cup ( 5.3 oz). But no ****ing YOGURT! You know: cultured cow’s milk, two ingredients: milk and bacteria (L. bulgaricus – yum). Just give me some good old fashioned, unadulterated, unprocessed (beyond pasteurization) cow’s milk yogurt. I’ll stir in my own M&Ms if I need to!  

And then there’s this.

And don’t even get me started on the coffee aisle; or the chip aisle!

Chili ( or is it Chile) Powder!

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get started. I’m going with a Chili Powder rant!

What the fuck is chili powder? If you don’t cook, you don’t care. That could be a philosophical statement, and/or a general condemnation of a lot of folks. But what I mean is, if you don’t take your spices seriously, you probably never asked yourself: “What the fuck is chili powder?”

I found myself asking this question a while back. And the quick answer is it’s a spice mix of cumin, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, and cayenne; not necessarily in that order, and not if you’re Alton Brown. In that case, arbol, cascabel, and ancho chiles become involved along with spice grinders. But basically, it’s a spice mix, sort of like curry powder. And like curry powder, the devil is in the details. Folks can agree on the basic ingredients, but not on how much of each and what adjuncts might make it your own. Anyone serious about their chili (or curry) has their own, sometimes closely guarded, recipe, a little like Colonel Sander’s 11 herbs and spices. (Did you know colonel doesn’t have an “r” in it – English! Another mystery and future rant.)

But what if I took some of Alton’s aforementioned peppers and ground them to a powder? Wouldn’t that be chili powder too? Well no, it would be chile powder. And it would be great if folks would stick with that that distinction. Wikipedia doesn’t really help with the confusion: “Chili powder is the dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties of chili pepper, sometimes with the addition of other spices.” I have a bottle of Chipotle Chili Pepper and a bottle of Ancho Chile Pepper.

But that’s not really my issue here. I can pretty much figure out what’s in the bottle, be it ground peppers or a spice mix. My issue here is when a recipe calls for chili powder. I’m not worried about the weeknight, “slap together some chili mac” for dinner recipe: A little ground beef, a little chili powder, a can of tomatoes and we’re done. I’m talking about recipes like this one. This is a professional recipe from a celebrity chef. I’ll spend two days preparing these ribs. A little accuracy would be appreciated. The recipe calls for chili powder. But four of the five basic ingredients are already in the recipe. This is like saying use this much cumin, this much garlic powder, this much paprika and this much cayenne. Then throw in an indeterminate amount of each of the above. The only chili powder ingredient that isn’t already there is oregano. Why not just specify how much (if any) oregano to add, and remove the imprecision of the “chili powder” (Would that be cumin forward chili powder, or paprika forward chili powder? Or maybe it’s Tio Alton’s chili powder.) By the way, if you decide to make this rub, two tablespoons of salt is WAY TOO MUCH. The position of the ingredient in the list tells you it should have been two teaspoons of salt.

I ran across a recipe for “The Best Homemade Taco Seasoning”.  In the overlong run-up to the recipe (there’s another rant to put to “paper” someday), this culinary advisor lists chili powder thusly:
Chili powder- for some added heat.She’s already got every chili powder ingredient in the recipe, save the heat (generally  cayenne). How much heat does the chili powder have? Wouldn’t you be more precise by specifying an amount of cayenne chile powder (pepper)? Or even better, suggesting adjusting the flavor of the heat with chipotle chile powder or ancho chile powder? When you specify chili powder, you’re duplicating most of your ingredients without really knowing how much of each.  And at the quantities here, you could easily be doubling some, maybe all, of the other listed ingredients. 

And by the way, if you use “chili powder”, is it really even “homemade”. (Homemade by McCormick).  

I should point out that this is called “The Best Homemade Taco Seasoning”. But if you made it with two different chili powders, chances are they wouldn’t be the same and neither would your taco seasoning. And kind of by definition, they couldn’t both be “The Best”.  

There’s another one here. These are “5 of the BEST Dry Rub Recipes for Chicken – Best Spice Blends” Number two is basically a recipe for chili powder (save oregano) with some more chili powder thrown in. If you’re going to make up a spice mix then make it from scratch and don’t throw someone else’s “secret” recipe in. 

By all means, find a “chili powder” that you like, especially if you want to slap together some quickie chili mac or make some savory oatmeal in the morning. Better yet, make your own basic chili powder for the same purpose, and then add to it, or otherwise  adjust to your tastes and/or the meal you’re preparing. And even use it in the recipes above. At least then you’d know the quantities of the duplicated ingredients. I just object to the ambiguity of spice mix recipes that call for chili powder of unknown ingredients and proportions  as part of the mix. You know what Reacher says: In an investigation, details matter”.