There is no spoon.

So it's a Friday night and all this talk on the news has me craving Persian food. Persian food, specifically the good folks over at Rice House of Kebab in Doral. For those of you not down with life in the 305, Doral is the newest subdivision in the Dirty dirty's collection of ethnic enclaves. Mostly Venezuelan and nuvea riche. The kind of place you see a lot of SUV's and fresh housing tracts.

So back to Rice. It's an awesome idea, fast food Persian style. Get your Kebabs or Kubideh to go, or eat them while watching CNN or ESPN on the big screen TV. Nice place, super clean, friendly staff.

So I go in and see the owner, super nice guy named Reza. From Iran, lived in the US a long time, lived in Texas, Iowa and now Miami. So I walk in and jokingly ask him how the business is given rioting over rice and limits of rice sales at Sam's Club and Costco.

Dead seriously, he looks at me and says it's bullshit. There's no shortage of rice. There's rioting because dealers raised the prices in poor countries, and then are using fear of riots to imply that there's a shortage, raising prices and encouraging hoarding. He should know, he buys it in quantity.

He goes on to tell me that the vendors have been pushing this for months. Ratchet up the price, and then offering "discounts" on bulk.

What he says is indicative of how the market in the current long collapse is getting played. Everyone is on edge. People expect a riot or something in response to the $120/barrel price of oil. Hoarding would have been a good idea if you'd gotten started years ago.
-----
Keeping with this, James Rawles on survivalblog.com posted a letter from a fan reporting at what he'd seen in the warehouse clubs. It's pretty indicative of what's really going on.

James,
I visited COSTCO store in Woodinville, Washington Saturday morning, right at the store's opening time. I had my doubts about the reality of the shortages, and needed to shop, anyway, so I thought I'd check it out for myself. They had eight big warehouse guys escorting two pallets of rice out to the showroom floor just about the time I arrived. Six of the eight then stayed with the rice, handing it out to customers as needed. Both pallets were completely sold out by the time I left the store about 45 minutes later.

I talked with two of the warehouse guys independent of each other, playing dumb and asking what was going on. Both said they were receiving normal shipments, just as they always had, but that customers were spooked and buying a lot more than normal. Both told me they expected their next rice shipment on Tuesday. One of them also told me (then showed me) that they were completely out of "general purpose" flour, and only had specialized bread-making flour in stock. Both swore up and down (and I have no reason to think they were being less than honest) that there were no shortages, just a run on things that they blamed on the media. There was enough cooking oil to fill a swimming pool, no shortages there. - Jeff F

-----
So what does one do? Well, clearly with the Wall Street Journal calling for "load up the pantry" as a hedge against food prices, folks who don't do this need a plan from those who do. The alternative is getting a lot of food you won't eat, don't know how to cook, or don't know how long to keep.

My advice, talk to your local Latter Day Saints.

The Mormons? The Mormons. They've had this preparation mentality for 150 years, and these guys are the experts on how to load a pantry for self sufficiency. The recommend their members stock up for a year minimum, and will teach you how for free. You don't have to become a Mormon either.

http://www.providentliving.org/channel/0,11677,1706-1,00.html

Another direction is the $5/week food storage plan, where you add $5 worth of food every week to your regular grocery bill. While not all of the suggestions are great (I mean, really, are you going to eat that much tomato soup?), the idea is sound and builds good reerves of staples.

http://www.themormonchannel.net/tmc/1yrfor5.html

Another track is canning and drying food to maximize storage life and space.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/

At the end of the day, this crisis is going to last a long time. Food preparation is not as sexy as discussing what caliber of rifle works best against mutant zombie bikers, but a smart plan about storing food is more apt to keep you alive.

-----
This has to be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. It's the "Lil Looming Disaster Pillow" from the Baby Bush Toy Company.

"This bright and charming pillow ensures that your child never forgets that the world is full of bad people plotting evil deeds."

Check 'em out at Baby Bush Toys.