When Cupboards get Out of Control

Hoarding takes many forms.  Here are some case studies, with useful pointers to help you highlight problem areas in your own home.

Two or More of Something

A special grater and the same grater in another size. Smart teapot plus two more teapots in case of funerals.

A collection of knives with just one that can cut stuff, the rest are there to keep it company. Useful spare woks and measuring jugs.

Stuff that Would be Expensive to Buy

Kilner jars. I don’t know how they got here but they refuse to leave. They just sit there silently pointing out how much they would cost in the cookshop.

You never know when something might need pickling.

Things from Ancestors

The ancestors said the best china was valuable, but that’s nonsense. There are cracked plates, and no saucers, but the cups work. If you remember to use them you can discuss ‘Why tea tastes better from bone china’ for hours.

And dusty tarnished candlesticks stubbornly hanging onto their bit of shelf because they can turn anything into an occasion. They know things about parties, fights and goings-on from long ago. Shame they didn’t have built-in webcams

Cooking in Different Ways

A mysterious meat thermometer, a griddle pan for burning food, measuring spoons for tiny quantities. Of what?

Tahini to make dips somehow. Two sorts of soy sauce, yellow bean paste, mirin rice vinegar, tamarind, oyster sauce, fish sauce and chilli paste. All the things you need if you acquire cookbooks like this and plan to learn new skills.

The books stay because one of them has a recipe I can do.  You have to go through all seven books to find it. That’s hard because it should be called sticky tofu, but it isn’t.

When you find it, you get to fry tofu in cornflour and cover it in a sweet, sour sauce made with maple syrup.  A delicious mix of sugar, fat and fried flour that is healthy, because it is tofu.

Fear of Being Caught Out

Four packets of cornflour. The shops ran low on cornflour the day after I discovered that anything dipped in it, and fried, is delicious. So it was fair enough to get extra in.

Sourdough yeast. Shops were empty. No bread, no yeast, just this. But the instructions were insane and bread miraculously came back to the shops.

Pasta in different shapes to vary the taste of cheese and tomato. Flat for lasagne, long lines for bolognaise, curly for something that is not as nice.

Egg boxes all ready for a glut of eggs from the chickens.

The Celebration Shelf

Half burnt candles in case of a birthday.  Worth keeping because they spell Happy Birthday and look classy as long as you light them before the birthday person sees them.

A selection of spices, icing sugar and syrup for once a year when ginger biscuits happen, and other bits of year when a birthday cake might happen. The Cranberry sauce, forgotten in a frenzy of sherry drinking.

Things to Impress

Herbal teas bought with a view to Drinking More Herbal Teas, especially when giving up alcohol or needing to calm down a bit. All boxes are opened and out of date but they look fine. Guests don’t see the date and like having a choice.

Home Produce after a lot of Hard Work

15 walnuts from the baby walnut tree. It is fiddly opening tiny walnuts so there are 14 left.

Homemade pickled onions are cheaper than the shop-bought ones, but you only save money if you eat them.

Conclusion

There is no salt or washing up liquid because it is impossible to remember to buy things like that.

After a hard day bothering about what’s in cupboards, borrow a dog and take it to water.  It will do this. 

This photo was taken minutes after Prince Phillip died. Remember all lives are short in the end, so grab moments of joy when you can. Be like a labrador whenever possible.

But don’t go out and buy one. They cost a fortune and are always wet.