Adventures in cheap packaged foods: StarKist Creations Premium Tuna with Rice and Beans

Today we swerve from the canned pork-beef-chicken trail to try some fancied-up tuna. Whole grain rice, black pearl barley, daikon radish seeds, beans, carrots, corn, and hot sauce. Looks promising. Looks healthier.

Tuna never looks good in an envelope

Basically, this is a ready-made tuna salad. As the package says, “Enjoy in lettuce wraps or straight from the pouch.” The idea of room-temperature rice and beans gave me pause. I’ve always had rice and beans warm. But this was an experiment. I decided to try it their way. I didn’t have any lettuce so I just ate it as is.

Not bad. Quite tasty, in fact. Oh, wait… WHOO! It’s very spicy. Hence the flaming BOLD on the package. I like spicy foods, but this stuff was at my threshold of tolerance. My mouth numbed a little and I was able to continue. I like how the spiciness didn’t overpower the other flavors.

Should’ve cleaned my nails before taking this photo

I wondered what it would taste like mixed with mayo, like some other types of tuna salad. That mellowed it a bit. And the bread damped the fire a little more. But yeah, good stuff—if you like tuna. And extreme spiciness. I do. Are the veggies and spices enough to make tuna haters change their mind? Mmmm, who knows?

Spring cleaning

I spent part of yesterday cleaning the dust and dirt from the driver’s compartment. Man, the dashboard has a lot of nooks and crannies. Break out the Q-tips.

A lot of stuff I had stuffed in the console and door pockets (like the warranty for tires I no longer had and the registration from three years ago) could be thrown out. And I rearranged the items stored on the passenger floor so it’s neater and simpler.

I saved the area around the rear doors for today. I had been ignoring how dirty it was back there. Months of driving on unpaved roads had left its mark. Dunes were starting to form. When I removed the plastic trim piece from the floor I discovered six-plus years of accumulation.

Screws, washers (no nuts, for some reason), pennies, a piece of zip-tie, pine needles, fuzz, pebbles, and dirt as crusty as adobe.

I’m ashamed for letting it get so dirty, but proud I got it all cleaned up. Not show car clean, but as good as I can get it without gutting the interior and power washing it.

Adventures in cheap packaged foods: Hormel Tamales

I love tamales. They’re one of my comfort foods. But canned tamales? Made by a gringo corporation whose other meat products are, um, less than delicious? Uuuuuuuhhh… What the hell. Take one for the team.

There are a lot of tamale variations. Different sizes and shapes, different contents, different wrappers. In the US, finger-sized tamales swimming in sauce seem to be a more popular style away from the border regions. Venders with pots of these little tamales used to work the streets as far north as New York and Boston.

These look rather pathetic in the can. They’re wrapped in some kind of paper rather than corn husks or banana leaves. And they’re obviously extruded from a machine rather than hand formed by loving abuelas. The ‘sauce” is very watery. I nuked them for a bit and…

If you like Hormel chili, then you might like these tamales. It’s the same type of mild heat with very little actual flavor except for salt and something suspiciously metallic. The meat is so finely ground it’s almost a paste. (It has to be to flow through the extruder.) And the masa is essentially tasteless. I tried these with and without the sauce. No difference. Despite their blandness these tamales still manage to taste kind of, oh, annoying.

I’ve been stimulated

My coronavirus stimulus check was autodeposited today. Woo-hoo! Lou got his, too.

It happened just like they said it would. Even though I haven’t needed to file taxes the past few years, even though I changed bank accounts and addresses since the last time the IRS ever autodeposited money on my behalf (and I hadn’t sent them my current data), they used my Social Security information and, bingo, there it is.

So, what will I do with the money? Fortunately, I’m not one of those made jobless by the pandemic. I have a stable (if meager) income with Social Security. I’m not facing foreclosure, eviction, repossession, loss of utilities, or starvation. So I have a few more options open to me.

There’s the temptation to blow the money on a big purchase. For example, I could finally splurge on a drone. Mmmmm, no. I don’t need that.

The wise thing is to add it to my emergency fund. The Rolling Steel Tent is going to need major repairs one of these days. Or a series of minor repairs. So I transferred the $1,200.00 to my savings account, away from impulse buys.

I know, the intent was for us to pump the money right back into the economy. Sorry, they’ll have to wait for mine.

Can your life fit in a van?

What sort of things do you need to do day to day, year to year, to feel like you’re living a full, rich life? A few things or a great variety? Simple things, or more involved activities?

We vandwellers talk a lot about downsizing the amount of stuff we have in order to fit in a van. But I haven’t come across much discussion of adjusting one’s life to a size that works in a van.

A nomad friend recently said not to believe those who say living in a van is easy. My reaction was, gee, it has been rather easy for me. Sure there are inconveniences, but nothing has been very difficult.

I guess that’s because I’m not trying to have the same life I had before. I’m not trying to live as if I’m not living in a van. That would be hard. It would be impossible. And even if I could pull it off somehow, it wouldn’t make me happy. Because I’m done with all that. I was done with it several years before I finally escaped. But the things that are important to me now, the things that give my life meaning, can fit in the Rolling Steel Tent with plenty of room to spare. In fact, the most important things fit in my head and heart.

But this is just me. I realize everyone is different, has different needs, desires, limits, obligations, goals, paths… All I’m saying is if you’re contemplating van life, think about whether the totality of you and all you want from life can fit in a van. Otherwise, it’ll be a struggle.

?!?!?!?

I was exploring a road in the Gila National Forest. I stopped at a pullout and walked along a trail into the woods, where I discovered this:

I don’t know why there’s glassware scattered about instead of the usual bottles, cans and shell casings. A higher class of littering jerks? The banana peel has me thinking daiquiris. There was no shattered glass anywhere, so I doubt they were used for target practice. At least they remembered their axe so they could pointlessly vandalize a tree.

Lou takes the next big step in home ownership

Lou made a deal with one of the neighbors who helped him build his house. The guy has a small engine repair business and occasionally gets his hands on a decent riding mower that just needs a little work. He traded this previously-owned mower for some of Lou’s leftover construction materials.

The degree to which Lou has become domesticated (and the speed of it all) freaks me out a little. I mean, one of the reasons I sold my house and moved into a van was to avoid yard work.

Undisclosed location in New Mexico

Adventures in cheap packaged foods: Spam

So far, this series has featured canned meats I had never tried before. Now I’m shifting focus to products I’ve had in the distant past. Some were served by my mother. Some I tried on my own. I used to love some of them and others tasted nasty. What would I think of them now that my tastes have matured, and after my tastebuds had been destroyed by throat cancer treatments and regenerated? I’m on a mission to find out.

No one ever said it was health food

First up, famous/infamous Spam. The lasting legacy of World War II. Still popular enough to fill supermarket and convenience store shelves. In a variety of flavors. Someone is eating this much-maligned stuff.

In all its naked glory

Luckily, the market offered half-size cans of Spam Classic. So I’d be throwing away less, if it came to that.

I took a taste and… nothing gross, just a lot of salt. Spam is short for spiced ham, and the number one spice is salt. Mountains of salt. Otherwise, it tastes a lot like bologna or hot dogs.

Spam is already fully cooked, so it can be eaten cold or heated. I fried up mine with potatoes. Given the amount of salt in Spam I didn’t salt the spuds. I could’ve gotten fancier, adding onions, peppers, cheese or whatever, but I wanted a more pure Spam experience. So just a little black pepper.

It was merely okay, which I suppose is a lot better than I had feared. I may never buy Spam again because there are better choices. But it’s no longer on my uninformed, knee-jerk, I’d Rather Starve list.

Infected with the toilet paper acquisition virus

Lou and I made a supply run to Silver City. I needed some food (and some new canned meats for future reviews) but as I passed the toilet paper aisle I saw they had some of the good stuff.

I already had enough to last a while, but the FUD circuitry in my brain said, “You don’t know about future availability! Get some while you can! Just in case!”

I usually get six-packs. Four-packs if I can find them. Because there’s not a lot of room to store the stuff in the Rolling Steel Tent. But all they had were twelve-packs. Er… um… okay. At least they weren’t 24-packs.

Back at Rancho Lou I filled the cupboard and the auxiliary crate with groceries. The toilet paper sat on the ground. Where could I put it that wouldn’t always be in the way? Hmmmmm…

“Hey Lou! Got any room in your shed where I can store this temporarily?” He did. Problem solved. For now.

It’s good to have homeowner friends.

At the intersection of real life and old television

Adventures in cheap packaged foods: Butterfield Farms Diced Ham

This diced ham was exactly what I expected. The contents, texture and flavor were exactly like a canned ham, because that’s what it is, only diced for your convenience, and in a smaller quantity. So the only issues are whether you like canned hams and want it in labor-saving cubes.

I gave mine a quick sauté then scrambled in a couple of eggs and topped it with some cheddar and salsa. Yup, tasted like ham.

Home show

Some of you have asked for photos of the interior of Lou’s place now that it’s finished and furnished. Here you go.

Thanks for the literal support

Lou knocked on the van. “With the hiking you’re talking about doing, you could probably use this. I got some of these to help wade in streams when I fish. The middle section doesn’t slide but you can probably fix that with some WD-40 or something.”

I thanked him and fiddled with the pole for a while. I took a break to sit in the sun, then fiddled with it some more. Presto, the middle section freed up and now it works as it should.

It isn’t a fancy new carbon fiber pole, just aluminum. The color has faded and there are scratches and dings, but it’ll make me look a little like a veteran hiker instead of the rookie I am.

Los amigos

Back in New Mexico with Lou. As you can see, we’re keeping proper social distance. Six feet for him plus six feet for me. Plus another six feet just in case. Friends don’t let friends infect friends.