Everything we ordered last weekend to enhance our food preps came in from Amazon.com in good time. The Prime items arrived on Wednesday and the Pantry items arrived on Friday. This is pretty close to being on time for Prime orders and as good as ever for Pantry orders.
Based on my personal experience order from Amazon.com, I would say that they have resolved their delivery delays but have not yet successfully restocked everything.
I do have an item from a prior order that was sold by a third party Amazon seller that has not arrived. It was given a tracking number on May 9 but has not yet been shipped. Since Amazon pays the vendor when the item ships, I’m guessing they printed a label so they could get paid but then never shipped the item. I would have much preferred that they sent me a “sorry, your item is out of stock,” email over keeping me hanging for more than three weeks and then lying about shipping the item. Someone is getting negative feedback.
Our Costco order also arrived on time. And my most recent review of their website showed that the number of items under their Pantry & Dry Goods section and the Canned Goods section have increased, meaning they are getting more and more in stock. If you had to place an emergency order on Costoc.com right now, you could enhance your food preps significantly.
Spam – the Kind you Eat
So we now have 50 cans of Spam in our prepper pantry, which admittedly sounds like quite a few. I figure in another year or two I will either be extremely grateful to have that much Spam, or my wife will give me a hard time as we donate the older cans to the food pantry. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.
I have since used up one can over the course of three breakfasts. My wife, who has refused to even try Spam, finally tasted a small bite. Here’s how that went:
Me: “Come on, try a little piece.”
Her: “No, I told you I would eat Spam at the end of the world, but not before.”
Me: “We’re probably never going to get closer to the end of the world than COVID-19. Give it a try.”
Her: Grumbles, eats a sliver of Spam from my plate. “Ew! Tastes like what I think canned cat food would taste like.”
Me: “Hmm. I may have to try some of that cat food.”
Her: “Double ew!”
OK, I’ll admit that the texture sometimes leaves a little something to be desired, but in my book Spam is better than not having any meat. I guess I need to buy some more canned chicken next time I go to Sam’s Club. We both like it.
Another Prepper Meal
We had what I refer to as a “prepper dinner” tonight. What does that mean? It’s when we prepare a meal entirely from our prepping pantry, often in one pan. Tonight, we cooked rice and then when it was ready, we stirred in a can of chili. It was the “Steak House” chili we buy from Costco, which is excellent. (I have four kind of canned chili in our pantry and I think this is the best one.) This time, we served it with shredded cheddar on top, but in a survival situation, we’d likely forgo that extra step. It was a tasty and filling dinner. Even my Spam-hating wife liked it.
There are plenty of things you can add to rice and cook in just one pan, including certain entrees from MREs. This combo not only makes a quick and easy “prepper dinner,” it can be good in a bugout situation.
Recently, we ate tortillas from an MRE Star brand of MREs we purchased in 2014. Technically, this was just beyond it’s five-year shelf life, but it tasted surprisingly good! They were still moist and showed no sign of spoilage or degradation. We’ve got quite a few more in storage. Now the question becomes, do we eat them while they are still good, or do we hold off another year and see if we need them? If you read the article How Prep for the Second Wave of COVID-19 we published earlier, you can probably guess that I decided to keep them for later. We may need them.
If you enjoyed today’s diary entry, you can see them all in chronological order. Catch up on our 10 weeks of quarantine or just read the ones that catch your eye.
