TASTES: Cleanup and cleanout for 2025
Good intentions sprout like weeds in January. It’s time to clean the pantry and start the new year with tidy shelves of healthy food. In 2025, nutritious ingredients will be organized in their proper place.
When I was growing up, groceries went into kitchen shelves that also held dishes, pots, serving bowls, baking utensils and paper goods. The tiny freezer compartment at the top of the refrigerator was only big enough to make ice and store ice cream.
There was no need to clean out the shelves in January because they were cleaned out weekly. I shop weekly but consistently buy more than needed. My pantry overflows. Fitting foods into my freezer has become a challenging puzzle. Paper goods get relegated to the garage.
A goldfish grows to the size of its container and our food supply does the same. I do not have a stand alone freezer in the garage or a walk in pantry. Imagine my food stash if I did have those spaces. How is it that, with so much on hand, we still declare there is nothing to eat.
The kitchen is the heart of the home and our pantries are open 24/7. We have a fascination with the European style of buying fresh foods daily yet we are also seduced by the idea of having a year’s supply of goods in case of an emergency.
Sometimes I challenge myself to use up and make do but there is comfort in a filled pantry. In 2020 the pandemic created panic over food shortages and brought to light unrealistic food insecurities. Most of us had excess food in our homes yet we cleared out store shelves and hoarded goods.
Buying in bulk is the American way. Homeowners are adding a so-called Costco door connecting the kitchen to the garage. Massive supplies from the big box store get shoveled from the car through a hatch to the kitchen. At one time my family of six provided a good excuse for buying in bulk. Now my husband and I go to Costco as a fun outing.
This excess buying brings me back to the necessity of cleaning out the pantry. “Alexa, clean the pantry” didn’t work like I had hoped. Why do I have duplicates of spices I never use? What possessed me to buy foods I don’t like? Do they even make this product anymore?
Everything gets taken out and the shelves get wiped down. Efforts at efficiency include grouping items together and putting “soon to expire” foods up front. Duplicates might be given to a food pantry. Maybe I should make an inventory of what’s on hand.
A clean pantry leads me to purging the refrigerator. How long am I going to save a spoonful of this or a dash of that? Should I just combine those two bottles of mustard? What’s buried at the bottom of that freezer, how long has it been there and why don’t I ever label anything? Is freezer burn a good reason to pitch something?
The pantry, refrigerator and freezer have been trimmed back and organized. The extra space tempts me to go forth and shop. Of course now I will only get what I need and everything will go in its designated place. After all, my new year is full of good intentions!