One of the things people like to say when they hear I’m a librarian is “you must be so organized!” (That or something about the Dewey Decimal System. The (few remaining) school librarians are doing something right.) Until this started happening to me regularly it had never occurred to me that organization was a common librarian trait. In fact, I started to get a tiny bit paranoid that I would be exiled from the library community if anyone discovered the truth.
However, when I finally had a few real days off last week I did feel a little New Year’s urge to tidy something up. I considered our closet, or the crawl space, but I wasn’t that motivated. Instead, I tackled our pantry cupboard. It’s entirely possible this is the first time I’ve cleaned this cupboard since we moved here in 2003. Yikes. It ended up being a very manageable project, the kind that make me wonder why I didn’t do it earlier. I found the red lentils and the whole cumin seeds that inspired yesterday’s red lentil and cauliflower curry as well as some couscous we ate with tonight’s stewed chicken thighs with dried fruit (and both recipes were really good, though I doctored the curry up a bit.) I got rid of a few unidentifiable spices, some rancid-ish whole wheat flour, and an extra box of cornstarch (because I don’t think I’ll ever finish one box, let alone two and a half,) but for the most part the stuff in the cupboard is stuff we’ll actually use, especially now that we can find it. Now I have to stop opening it just to bask in its organized goodness–my potatoes are starting to grow eyes!
