How ready are you?

I have this feeling that I will never feel quite "ready" for an emergency. Case in point:

On Sunday the electricity went out in our area for about 15 minutes. This caused me, then and now, to:

--wonder, now that the cold season is basically over, at least for a few months, how exactly I would cook food if the electricity stayed off. We do have some wood left from the winter season for our wood stove, but it has a very (disappointingly) short "lip" for cooking purposes, which until we figure out how to use it more effectively, basically limits what we can cook to whatever we can fit into something the size of a soup can. I guess there would also be whatever recipes we could find in terms of tinfoil, camping out kind of dinners, but remember, the electricity, and hence the most helpful source of recipes-- the computer-- was out at that point... (We do love our woodstove, though, and are very grateful to have it!)

---wonder exactly what condition our grill is in, seeing as how we don't usually grill for fun and haven't used it in a long time. We have some fuel for it, but it would add to the stress if a major overhaul was needed before we could start cooking on it. Move that one up higher on the list...

---wonder why I haven't put together a cardboard box oven according to the directions given over at Safely Gathered In, and practiced at my leisure with it until I was comfortable using it any old time. Move that one up higher on the list, too....

---wonder just exactly how handy the little "wood gas" stove ,that my best source (Mom) sent up with my dad when he delivered water barrels, actually is. From what I understand, it "double burns" in effect, since it burns the smoke from the woodburning. Gotta love two for one :). She got it in a group order from Grant Johnson, who has a website with pictures here. (If you are interested in a group order, you can contact him at grant@ getpreparedstuff.com. I actually called my mom to get this, as I didn't see it on his site. Hey, I'm not selling it, and neither is she, but it seems like a really cool product. ) I'm going to blog about it--soon-- once I open it up and take pictures, etc., but my understanding is that it takes very little fuel (twigs, etc.) and is very fuel efficient and effective. Planning on using this soon, but it definitely was not part of my plan on Sunday--but are emergencies ever really part of anyone's plan?

Well, I hope your answer to the title question is that you are more prepared than I am. Nothing like 15 minutes of power outage for no apparent reason to make me really take stock of how I'm going to cook with my emergency supplies. We would have been able to cook some way, somehow, but now I know ways to prepare so that such a situation would be easier.....