When Nupur of One Hot Stove asks you to check what is lurking in your pantry, you don’t dally. You head straight for the pantry, throw open the door and stare at the mess that greets you. The pantry along with the rest of the house had been neglected for the last three months due to someone’s studies. There were packets of lentils, flour, some sprouting onions, a funky smell from some potatoes that got left at the bottom of the basket.
Ladies and gentlemen, don’t judge me. I am not always like this and I usually clean my pantry every couple of months. I was running a month behind, no big deal. Besides, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it, no less on a public blog.
Keep in mind all my kitchen essentials, except my masala dabba, are stored in the twenty square foot space which my dad calls a small kirana store (corner grocery store). Ok, my plates and bowls and glasses and kitchen utensils are also not in there.
Coming back to the sprouting onions and rotting potatoes, which promptly went on a date with the waste basket, the pantry was not as much a mess as it looked at first glance. The big cereal box from Costco was put on the top shelf, dwindling grains and lentils were transferred to cleaned, washed and saved up jam and salsa jars. The larger packets got their due space in bigger containers and canned goods were arranged with smaller ones on top of the larger ones.
Before you think I try to arrange my pantry like Ms. Martha Stewart, let me clarify. I grew up in a house where my mom cooked in a tiny kitchen. The first apartment I lived in after marriage had a galley kitchen so small I could touch the sink and stove with my arms extended. Six years later, when we bought our house, I was excited to have a pantry big enough to keep everything within easy reach.
