We have most of the modern conveniences in our kitchen.  A food processer, a blender, and a couple kinds of electric mixers (one of which is avocado green and is probably from the 70’s).   We use them regularly, but we also have all the right stuff for camping, like a propane stove, battery and gas lanterns, and flashlights.  Those items are not only handy for camping, but also for those times when we lose electricity due to wind storms or ice storms.  We are pretty comfortable living without our modern conveniences, at least for short durations. 

In my craft room, I even have a working treadle sewing machine, and a hand-crank singer.  I love the old machines.  I know I could use them if the electricity was out, but would I really?  Usually if our electricity is off for any length of time it’s because of a big storm, and we are occupied with keeping the house warm, or getting water since the electric well pump doesn’t work without electricity.  I’m not usually thinking about crafting.  Nonetheless, I really appreciate the machines and tools that don’t require gas or electricity.   Like manual eggbeaters. 

One year my mother-in-law challenged the family to have a grow, gather, or hunt Thanksgiving.  We were to bring food we had grown in our gardens, gathered in the wild, hunted, or fished for this dinner.  Our plan was to bring home grown potatoes, and pumpkin pie made from our garden winter squash and eggs from our chickens.  There was only a little bit of complaining about the small and erratic sizes of our potatoes as we were pealing them, but the dinner was fun, interesting, and delicious.  There were some exceptions to the grow-your-own rules—like whipping cream.  None of us owned dairy animals, but whipped cream is essential for pie, so we had store-bought cream and we made it in my mother-in-law’s state-of-the-art stand-mixer.  Her mixer was way fancier than the wimpy electric mixers we had at our house. 

Another year, we all agreed to have Thanksgiving at “The Cabin”.  The Cabin has no electricity, and is way out on a narrow mountain road.  There was a woodstove and a propane stove to cook on, and it even had a small propane oven.  But there were no food processors, no microwaves, and no electric mixers. 

In many ways that meal was simpler than the grow/gather/hunt dinner.  The turkey was pre-cooked and simply warmed up in the small gas oven.  The mashed potatoes were instant, due to limited cooking space.  But we had pumpkin pie and whipping cream.  For the whipping cream we brought our manual eggbeater, the old-fashioned kind with the crank on the side.  It takes forever to make whipped cream with a manual eggbeater.  We kept passing the bowl around to each family member to share the beating duties.  Finally, we had soft peaks in the cream, and proclaimed it done.  The pie with whipped cream was delicious as always.

I left that eggbeater up at The Cabin, but eventually we bought another one to use at home.  Because around here, you never know when the power will go out for an extended period of time.  If it does, you might want to sew on a manual sewing machine, or use a manual eggbeater to make whipped cream to serve on top of instant chocolate pudding. One must be ready for anything. Also, now I want some pudding.