Dear Lauren,

You should know that I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food. Don't get overwhelmed or intimidated as you try to incorporate new foods and way of cooking. Think of it as a form of play, a delicious form. Sometimes things don't work or taste good and that is okay, just throw it away and have dessert instead. I usually spend from 3p to 6p every afternoon/evening cooking/eating/and cleaning up dinner. It is a huge chunk of time, but I really like to eat good food. I realized the other day that the reason I feel like I never have anything to wear or look put together is because in order to dress well you have to spend time thinking about and shopping for clothes. I spend my time with food. So there you go.

I have thought and thought about the whole 3 month food storage thing and finally decided that if I had to live off of my food storage for 3 months my goal was to have food that was nutrient dense and food that I already use on a regular basis. I store very little in the way of canned fruit or vegetables because in my opinion they really don't have any nutritive value and they taste terrible (except for the fruit, but that is because it is usually packed in a sugar syrup) so the only produce-y stuff I store includes canned tomatoes, sweet potato puree and applesauce. So here is my list:

Steel Cut Oats (50 lbs)
Rolled Oats (25 lbs)
Wheat (75 lbs)
French Green Lentils (10 lbs)
Quinoa (15 lbs)
Dried Pinto Beans (25 lbs)
Masa Harina (10 lbs)
Pasta (12 lbs)
Applesauce (30 3-lb jars)
Tomatoes, diced (24 12-oz cans)
Tomato Sauce (24 12-oz cans)
Tomatoes, whole (12 28-oz cans)
Sweet Potato Puree (24 12-0z cans)
Tomatillo salsa/enchilada sauce (12 10 oz jars)
Organic Chicken Better than Bullion (3 jars)
Olive Oil (3 bottles)
Balsamic Vinegar (2 bottles)
Honey (5 lbs)
Maple Syrup (64 ounces)
Strawberry Jam (60 oz)
Peanut Butter (24 jars)
Yeast (6 jars)
Vanilla (3 bottles)
Organic Valley Powdered Milk (25 lbs)
Brown Sugar (5 lbs)
Sugar (10 lbs)
Kosher Salt
Sea Salt
A bunch of spices (garlic, onion, basil, sage, rosemary, cumin, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon are my basic basics)

Hope this helps.