The typical response to a giant snowfall now is abject panic. I have yet to understand why. Even in a snowfall of the magnitude that has just befallen Baltimore and Washington, there’s very little likelihood of being trapped for more than a couple of days. And, when you live in the city, you might be prevented from driving, but surely you can walk to stores, restaurants and bars. I simply cannot comprehend the rush for milk, bread and toilet paper. If you didn’t have enough milk, bread and toilet paper to last for two days, you really needed to go to the store anyway, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

I firmly believe in self-sufficience, or at least to the extent that one can be self-sufficient in a major city. Sure, I can’t actually raise enough of a crop in my tiny little garden to support myself — therefore, it’s given over to roses and other pretty things that will ease the heat of brutal Maryland summer. (One of those pretty things, though, is an annual crop of nasturtiums, whose seeds and flowers can be pickled and turned into a very nice relish.)

From the city’s bountiful markets — Lexington, Cross Street, Hollins, and Northeast, primarily — I can get the best cuts of meat twelve months of the year, fresher and better dressed than any chain store has ever dreamed of offering. The greengrocers at those same markets don’t offer — or offer with some reluctance — wan vegetation off the fast trains from Florida, but remind me that a good Maryland table is seasonal. I might not be able to serve good fresh spinach to my wintertime guests, but I can give them the best local turnips and parsnips on earth.

What I cannot buy in the winter, I buy in the summer from our markets, and especially from the beloved “new” tradition of the Waverly farmer’s market. The lovely old neighborhood of Waverly spawned this market back in the ’80s, thanks to a convergence of earthy hippie types, Middle Earthers and unreformed Communists that had invaded the once WASPy area. In good Baltimorean tradition, everyone else recognized a good thing when they saw it, and before long the farmers’ market was full of Guilford ladies in furs and heels, Charles Village matrons tight with a dime, and Calvert Street queens of the not-so-royal variety looking for the Very Latest Thing. They all mixed with the former Commies (there’s still one unreconstructed Red there, trying desperately to sell copies of the International Worker) and a city institution was born.

When I shop there in the summer, I get all of the best vegetables from Baltimore, Harford, Cecil, Carroll and Anne Arundel counties. Everyone for two blocks knows when this happens, because I form piles of things in the backyard. Friends know to avoid because I announce my canning procedure ahead of time — they are usually smart enough to distance themselves from the process. Once I have the stuff I want laid out in the garden, the real fun begins... pickle of every sort! Mustard, Icicle and Bread and Butter. Chow Chow, Tomato relish and Cauliflower pickle. Then the fruit preserves. Mmm — there’s nothing quite like a good dollop of Cantaloupe preserve on your Christmas morning rolls.

Naturally the best way to approach your canning is with a good mint julep in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It’s the only real way — but try, if you can, not to ash into the mixture as it will lend an odd color to your jars.

A small bit of preparation, and a roomy cellar, should leave you without worry in the incidence of several feet of snow. Snow should be for fun — a few days off from work or school, steaming pots of tea and chocolate, and camaraderie. Every time it snows, I meet new neighbors. Tonight, however, I’m chilling a bottle of good Rhein wine in the drift on my steps and am planning a surreptitious sledding run to Suicide Hill.