Twice a year Apartment Therapy does a Kitchen Cure with several weeks of tasks designed to clean, refresh and revamp your kitchen and now that I’m done with school and I won’t be taking any vacations anytime soon, I fill my time with ridiculous projects. So naturally I signed up. I feel that I should add that signing up merely means they’re going to email me once a week with some sort of new task not that suddenly I have some drill sergeant holy shit THAT’S how you spell sergeant? looking over my shoulder making sure I’m actually doing this. But I’m feeling bored motivated so I’m doing it anyway. Clearly I’m just dying for someone to just assign me something already.
We’re supposed to take before and after pictures with all our cupboards and everything open but I think kitchenwares are very personal things. Why don’t they just ask me to take a picture of my shirt off with my bank account written on my boobs?
I’m not, however, above showing you what’s in my refrigerator because I find other peoples’ fridges fascinating so I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Doesn’t look too bad I suppose until I tell you that almost everything in there is way old, a lot of it growing various molds/secondary organisms. Both of those egg cartons are at least two months old and yes they still have eggs in them. Obviously I’m a very wasteful person. A wasteful person who has quite a lot of beer.
I set about emptying the fridge and it became pretty clear that everything had to go.
This is the reject pile. That carton of cream? Solid. Couldn’t even pour it down the drain. I felt so bad that I tried to salvage anything possible. So I figure now’s as good a time as any to drink this sparkling sake I purchased probably two years ago now. I poured it in the only glass I owned that seemed acceptable for such a fine beverage: a cordial glass I acquired for the purpose of drinking some schnapps I bought from Germany but never did because they tasted like cough syrup.
What a nice little treat while cleaning out the fridge! And then I took a sip and dumped the whole thing out because ew. Shit’s nasty.
Huzzah! The only thing left is beer, wine, butter, some condiment, some cheese, and, inexplicably, all the ingredients needed to make kimchi. I thoroughly wiped down all the surfaces, including the bottom which suffered from permanent sticky due to an unfortunate marmalade incident. AND I put my beer into a ridiculous order based on rank (all the really good shit is hidden in the back so my guests can’t accidentally swipe my Westvleteren. I’m known for being a gracious and generous host). I can’t stop looking at it, it’s so pretty. I’ll never buy food again to sully such a beautiful fridge….and I probably shouldn’t be allowed to buy food again, given my propensity for dumping it half-eaten.
Then I went through my cupboards and organized the dried goods and set aside things that I wanted to use right away rather than languish in the pantry for another year:
This should give you an idea of my spending habits, namely that I’m a stockpiler for things that I think will come in handy. I grab a bag of panko and a bottle of sirarcha literally every time I go to H-Mart, and a can of pumpkin puree every time I see it in the supermarket, and a bag of chocolate chips every time I shop at Trader Joe’s. I also figured out that people feel the need to give me with maple syrup (that is my second jar). Finally, I lost the cap to that rum and so I covered it with saran wrap and it’s been sitting there like that since New Year’s. With slightly less rum in it. Now: just what in the heck should I be making with some of this stuff?
Whew, I’m exhausted but I feel so alive!!!!! ALIVE!!! WASN’T THAT THE MOST FUN ADVENTURE YOU’VE EVER HAD?! Look here’s a picture of my hamster holding a corncob with her feet:
