Day 54
I have a thing for pantries. I do. I think it must stem from my childhood and staying with my mom’s parents for overnights and such. They had a walk-in pantry and it was fabulous.
Now, to anyone else it was probably a larged size closet full of household items and canned goods but to me it was Paradise. And it had a certain smell … that from time to time I still get a whiff of and am instantly transported back to the apartment on Nashville … a combination of spice and age and Cracker Jacks.
My parents have a very small wall pantry. I have two – one built into the wall which is so shallow that a large can of chili beans can barely fit on … and a two door space which used to house the washer and dryer in the days before we added on the laundry room.
None of these pantries bring chills to my spine like the one in my grandparent’s apartment.
My big pantry is cleaned out every six months or so … or sooner if I see signs that the cats have not been up on their mousing duties! (Living by the park brings such visitors!) However, it amazes me at what I find in that pantry upon each cleaning. Similar to my cleaning of my parent’s cabinets when I go back home to visit. I’m sure they have a secret stash of salad dressings in some vault in the basement all dated to expire in May of 2003. Every time I go back there is another bottle in the fridge with such an expiration date on it. I threw them all out before? How does this keep happening?!
Well, I’m not sure … but it’s happening in my pantry, as well.
Last night I cleaned out the big pantry. I was on a mission. I purged. I scoffed at the contents. I was ruthless. It was great.
Besides pantries I have a penchant for specialty foods. The problem is I’m more a collector of them than a user of them. Last night I found fancy chocolate covered marshmallows on skewers (to dip into hot chocolate) in an unopened package. Circa 2006. Really? How the heck have I not noticed them for the past 6 years? Egad.
And maybe it’s just because I am alone. It was hard for me to go from buying groceries for a family of four (and my son’s friends who would come and raid the pantry every time they were over … and we were the “hub house” so that was pretty often!) … to just buying for myself. It still is. A large can of soup can last me days. I usually end up giving it to the dogs! So no wonder things keep accumulating in the pantry!
In any case … I don’t even think the property I’m looking at even has a pantry … which might be why the universe is not giving me signals to buy it yet! In the meantime, I need to get back to packing up and purging the rest of what’s in mine … I’m sure there’s an ancient box of Lucky Charms at the back somewhere!