Brilliant Stainless Steel Juicer

Stainless Lux sends this elegant, well-made stainless steel juicer to you from Arizona in its own gorgeous drawstring pouch, for $16.00 plus shipping fee. This is the Elegant Survival Non-Electric Tool choice for making grapefruit and orange juice at home.

Courtesy of M-J de Mesterton

Brilliant Stainless Steel Juicer

Stainless Lux sends this elegant, well-made stainless steel juicer to you from Arizona in its own gorgeous drawstring pouch, for $16.00 plus shipping fee. This is the Elegant Survival Non-Electric Tool hoice for making grapefruit and orange juice at home.

Stainless Lux Juicer

The affordable way to juice oranges, grapefruit, lemons and limes: Stainless Lux

Elegant Bamboo Cooking Tools

Available at Wal-Mart for about three dollars, these ultra-useful, sturdy cook’s implements are made from bamboo.  Each white mesh bag contains five bamboo spatulas and spoons. At that price, it may be wise to purchase two packs of them.

From The Clothes Line: Elegant Survival of Your Clothing

The Clothes Line, an Elegant Survival Original, Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2006

Clothes dryers are energy-wasters, and will ruin your clothes as well, through fiber-loss and shrinkage. Hand-washing and line-drying your shirts will extend their lives. I use Zote soap and a microfiber cloth to rub dirt out of cuffs and collars. Underarms need special attention, too. I use a microfibre cloth instead of a brush because it is more gentle on the fabric, while strong enough to grab what I like to call “café crud” from cuffs. You don’t need a fancy contraption for clothes-drying; a five-dollar investment in a clothesline from Walmart, and a packet of wooden clothespins for about three dollars will do. Having a couple of trees to hold your clothesline at each end is lucky indeed, but in their absence, wooden posts can be installed.

When travelling, pack a small piece of Zote or Octagon bar-soap for hand-washing dainties and shirts in your quarters. The shower is a nice place to hang them; they will likely dry overnight, and probably not need ironing.  You might pack a couple of clothes-pins as well.

The sun and Zote soap both act as  fabric-brighteners, and your clothes will have a clean, fresh scent if treated to a sun-bath.

~~Copyright M-J de Mesterton, 2009

Non-Electric Tool: the Lehman’s Foodmill

If the power goes out, or disappears altogether (with the ridiculous restrictions on energy-production in the U.S., you never know what may happen), there is an alternative to the food-processor and blender: the hand-operated foodmill. Lehman’s, a company of which I am fond and have featured here at Elegant Survival several times, has an affordable, efficient one.

Lehman's Foodmill

Wood Doesn’t Grow on Trees–or Something Like That…

…if your household consumes ice cream bars or frozen pops with sticks, throwing the “popsicle” sticks away is wasteful. If you’ve read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, it’s going to hit you that wood is not to be wasted.

Sticks are easily stored in a survival pack for emergency kindling.

If you have kids, encourage them to wash, dry and collect their frozen-pop sticks for possible future use.

Save these Sticks for Neat Emergency Kindling

If you really get into this idea, consider saving your used wooden matchsticks, as well. They also make good miniature kindling wood.

Elegant Survival Non-Electric Tools

In the event of a power-outage, or complete disaster, you will need certain non-electric kitchen tools. Let’s say that you’ve successfully put away a stock of wheat. You will need to grind it for flour, or crush it for salads and pilafs. The traditional heavy metal meat and vegetable grinder, which attaches by vise to a table or counter-top, is necessary. If you have stored-up a load of coffee beans (whole coffee beans, like wheat “berries”, have a much longer shelf-life than their ground forms), you will need a high-quality, hand-operated coffee grinder. See my Survival Tools link-list on the right side of this page for sources.
Hand-Operated Meat and Wheat Grinder

Here is a photo of my sprouted grains and seeds, showing my hand-operated coffee-grinder.
Click on photo to enlarge Photo Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2008

Emergency Foods

A great way to always have some form of cheese, without refrigeration, is to buy economy-sized containers of grated Parmesan cheese–the kind which comes in the plastic cylinders. Kraft has a nice product; check its packaging for shelf-life prospectus. As in my previous posts about dehydrated foods, et cetera, I’m not posting this information for food-snobs, but for people who wish to be prepared for disaster!

You would do well to lay in a supply of pasta and powdered eggs, as well as olive oil and nuts. It may not be the most nutritious food, but there’s a lot you can do with pasta. A recipe I devised years ago is this: sauté some walnuts and chopped garlic in olive oil until they are brown. Add it to your cooked pasta, together with shredded or grated Parmesan cheese. Eggs, of course, are nature’s perfect food, in my opinion. Adding Parmesan cheese to an omelette yields a delicious dish, especially when it also contains tomatoes, sun-dried or fresh. Both pasta and egg dishes are enhanced by dried parsley and chives–two other items to have on hand when it seems that the end is at hand!

~~M-J de Mesterton

Copyright M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Survival Non-Electric Tools

In the event of a power-outage, or complete disaster, you will need certain non-electric kitchen tools. Let’s say that you’ve successfully put away a stock of wheat. You will need to grind it for flour, or crush it for salads and pilafs. The traditional heavy metal meat and vegetable grinder, which attaches by vise to a table or counter-top, is necessary. If you have stored-up a load of coffee beans (whole coffee beans, like wheat “berries”, have a much longer shelf-life than their ground forms), you will need a high-quality, hand-operated coffee grinder. See my Survival Tools link-list on the right side of this page for sources.
Hand-Operated Meat and Wheat Grinder

Here is a photo of my sprouted grains and seeds, showing my hand-operated coffee-grinder.
Click on photo to enlarge Photo Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2008

Emergency Foods

A great way to always have some form of cheese, without refrigeration, is to buy economy-sized containers of grated Parmesan cheese–the kind which comes in the plastic cylinders. Kraft has a nice product; check its packaging for shelf-life prospectus. As in my previous posts about dehydrated foods, et cetera, I’m not posting this information for food-snobs, but for people who wish to be prepared for disaster!

You would do well to lay in a supply of pasta and powdered eggs, as well as olive oil and nuts. It may not be the most nutritious food, but there’s a lot you can do with pasta. A recipe I devised years ago is this: sauté some walnuts and chopped garlic in olive oil until they are brown. Add it to your cooked pasta, together with shredded or grated Parmesan cheese. Eggs, of course, are nature’s perfect food, in my opinion. Adding Parmesan cheese to an omelette yields a delicious dish, especially when it also contains tomatoes, sun-dried or fresh. Both pasta and egg dishes are enhanced by dried parsley and chives–two other items to have on hand when it seems that the end is at hand!

~~M-J de Mesterton

Courtesy of M-J de Mesterton