Food organization 101

He hath eaten me out of house and home. ~ William Shakespeare, "King Henry IV, Part 2"

There have been a number of bumps in the road to my clutter free journey. I live with a lovely husband, but he happens to be a Yankee Thrifter...meaning, in this part of the country, that nothing that has the minimum of value is ever thrown out. I've given up arguing over the sweaters he hasn't worn since high school, or the dreadfully ugly lamps leftover from the mid-80's. My husband's philosophy has always been "If there is life left in it, we keep it." So, my basement might still have art from our college dorm walls, some really flimsy furniture from our first apartment and pants neither one of us will ever get into again, I've learned where to pick my battles. He's completely jumped on board with helping me keep our bedroom, our laundry room and the other common areas picked up. I've appreciated his help because it's hard to de-clutter when you are constantly digging out from your housemate's mess.

The one room in which Jeff took the initiative, rather than I, was our walk in pantry. We have been incredibly blessed with this space. It's a full walk in closet sized pantry with floor to ceiling shelves. Because it's cuts a corner in our contemporary style house, the pantry has three sides of shelves or hanging space. This room is larger than my first dorm room. And, I had a roommate. Nevertheless, it's been one of those areas of the house that has gotten away from us. When this house was built 18 years ago, it never occurred to me that we would accumulate food and household products for that entire time and never use them. The pantry had become a catch all, an 'open door, chuck it in' room, rather than a safe, efficient and healthy place to store our food. By the time Jeff chose to tackle this project, there was brand new cookie mix, stuck behind ten year old boxes of Mac N'Cheese, underneath a Sam's Club stack of plastic plates that we bought for a 4th of July party in 1999...and never used. We had twelve different jars of 12 different brands of mustard and 11 bags of unopened chips. Some of them dating from my first pregnancy. We found really wonderful Wolfgang Puck canned soups, that would have tasted delicious, had we realized we had them before the shelf life expired. Worst of all? Two unopened boxes of Bisquick that had been visited by tiny black bugs. Enough was enough.

We brought the trash can into the pantry and began pitching what we could. We took another bin out to recycle the items that could be recycled. This was my job. It was not pretty. But, it was worth it. I dumped out containers of spoiled, past due food, and then flattened the cardboard boxes and rinsed out glass and metal containers. It took the better part of a rainy Saturday just to get rid of the rubbish. But, when we were done, we were able to reshelve the items that were still very good. Before we put them back into the pantry, I designated one area for beverages, another for canned goods, yet another for rice and pasta, and a fourth for baking products. I washed off each of the shelves carefully, so I wasn't putting clean on top of dirty. I labeled the front of the shelves. Now, when I want to bake cookies, I can find the mix and the chips. When my son has had a late night at hockey practice, he can heat himself up a bowl of soup. We can easily grab snack foods, like granola bars or fruit leathers, from the baskets I've put in the bottom level of storage. When a space is empty, then (and only then) do I know it's time to restock. There is no reason to have a repeat of the great Mustard Muster again.

I have to admit, this was a huge project. But, it's also made life much easier. I no longer reach for a bottled water and come out with ketchup. I am also saving money at the grocery store, because I'm not buying items out of habit (even if I had them on the shelves). Rather, I'm buying out of replacement need.

Most of all, it's nice to be embarrassed anymore when people come over and want to grab a Pellegrino. I am now confident they won't be attacked in the process.