Good Friday

On Wednesday I cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and the refrigerator. Our trash pick-up day is Thursday, and I wanted to be sure things I was discarding didn't sit in the roll-out can very long. So I did my best imitation of the Jewish housewife seeking out the last traces of leaven before Passover, and cleaned out the things that were no longer edible. In my main cupboard I took everything off the shelves and sponged them down. In the fridge pulled things out to look for old storage containters, then wiped down the surfaces.

And this is the result. As you can see, there's quite a bit of empty space on the bottom shelf. This is the place where cookies and crackers and such things live. All that's left is a few goldfish, a jar of popcorn, and some dried fruit. The boxes of stale cereal are gone and that middle shelf has been reorganized so I can get at the things I use most more easily. It makes me smile every time I open it. It will make me smile even more when it has been restocked.

And this is the refrigerator. I got rid of old bottles of salad dressing and any vegetables and fruit that were old and tired. There is way more empty space in there than usual, but it's probably looking more the way it should on a regular basis. I'm going to try not to have it so full that I can't find things, because then they don't get eaten. I know I don't need to buy pickles and mustard for a while. And the tubs on the bottom shelf are dried herbs that I store there normally; they're not leftovers.

I still have to sort through the freezer and get rid of things that are freezer-burned and so old they're way past prime. I'll do that next Wednesday, before trash pick-up, and post an "after" photo then.