COMMENTARY
Janice Okun: The kitchen benefits from relentless wintry assault
Snow, snow, snow. Every morning I turn to the last page of The News’ local section where the pictures of the seven-day forecast appear. And I groan.
Like all of us, I’m getting pretty tired of those cute cloud pillows and the equally cute, equally relentless little flakes that fall from them.
My kitchen, at least, is profiting from all this meteorological activity. Never have my pantry shelves looked so terrific; never have they been so organized. (Obviously, I’m spending a lot of time at home.)
Decision, decisions, decisions. To keep or not too keep? I had to be utterly ruthless. I’m pretty sure I can use up all the specialty oils and vinegars I found sleeping in the corners. I do know I’d better get to all those liquids quickly because they they don’t exactly age like fine wine.
I’m not necessarily sure what I can do with all those mustards — at one time, mustard was a hot item on the so called “gourmet” market and I think I cornered it.
This is going to be embarrassing: In addition to Weber’s because I am a true Western New Yorker, I also have Dijon (both Maille, which I bought in Paris a while ago because the container was so pretty, and Grey Poupon, made in the good old U.S. of A. by our ubiquitous friend Mr. Kraft.)
I also have whole grain mustard (huge space-guzzling crock made by Pommery) and green colored mustard made with herbs and brown mustard (Plochman’s). Not to mention dry mustard (Colman’s — of course.)
That’s a lot of sandwiches, salad dressings and sauce.
Spices presented another problem. Like anyone else who spends time in a kitchen, I have too many of them, most purchased for a particular recipe and never used again.
The spice associations tell me to throw anything out that’s a year old, but that might be too radical. I sniffed them to see how much life is left, got rid of a few and then I arranged the rest in alphabetical order.
I did keep all three paprikas (hot, sweet Hungarian and smoked Spanish) because there really is a difference and several coarse salts (because they were expensive). Most of the time I use David’s Kosher Salt because it costs less.
I did have the courage to throw out silly blends like Pumpkin Pie Spice, a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and a little ginger. You don’t need a special mix or container — I’m trying to save space.
Which meant I ditched special spice blends designed for specific dishes like meatloaf. Anyone can simply use the basic stuff on hand.
Garlic salt? Out. I think it has a funny taste to it and I’d rather control the amount of salt in recipes. Ditto onion salt and celery salt (salt and smashed celery seed.)
I got rid of a lot of commercial salad dressings and do not plan to buy any more of them because they are expensive and most of them have weird ingredients. I can make my own (using up some of those oils and vinegars) Three or four parts oil to one part of vinegar with a little of that dry mustard does the trick.
Don’t know how long this will last but at the moment, everything is terrific. I can actually open a cupboard door without ducking — haven’t been conked on head in a week. And maybe, somewhere down the line, I’ll save some money.
Here’s how: Sure, two important ways to cut the food budget — as mentioned in our front page story — are wise buying and eliminating waste, but that list must include knowing, and using, what you have already have on hand.
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