The Pantry – “To pantry or not to pantry.”

February 16, 2020 – The Pantry – “To pantry or not to pantry.”

         Back in 1985, I’d just moved to the South when I was at a new friend’s home, and she blurted out, “I’ve nothing in the house to eat.”

         I didn’t believe her. “Of course you do,” I said, thinking everyone has staples in their pantry. I could empathize that one doesn’t always want to be creative and come up with some mundane meal made out of the staples in the pantry, but that is what a pantry is all about.

         “No, I absolutely do not have a thing, come look if you don’t believe me,” she said and she jumped up and led me to her kitchen where she swung open overhead cabinets and lower cabinets, “no cereal, no canned goods . . .” her voice drifted off.

         I was stunned and speechless for once.  It was only at that moment I understood the depth of her situation, her quandary, her angst.  I’d personally never experienced a completely bare pantry.  That moment stuck in my memory – closer to the surface than it should have – for years – even now when I straighten up my pantry or pull out everything and wipe down the shelves – that dramatic scene plays out in my head.

         Was it just an economic thing or a regional thing. I have mulled it over for years. I was one of three children in a lower wage household and there was always something in the pantry. 

         In the North in the wintertime, in the 1960s and 1970s you have to set back things because of sudden storms. Canned beans, tuna, chipped beef, egg noodles, rice, or elbow macaroni.  Also, there was the produce from the previous summer garden, such as, the stewed tomatoes, canned green beans, or canned peaches.

         Last evening, my husband was wandering around the kitchen opening the cabinets searching for a snack.  He opened the dry good staples cabinet and turned his nose up at his Ritz crackers, then he opened the canned goods lower cabinet and gave it a purview.

         “What are you looking for,” I called out and then added, “Supper didn’t fill you up?”

         “No, I’m still hungry,” he paced once more around the kitchen and popped open the container of croissants on the center island to start his snack process.

         He made himself a toasted croissant with my best raspberry jam.

          Mind you, I am the one who will drop the extra $1.50 per jar for top-shelf specialty preserves or jams, and my favorite brand is Bonne Maman, from France. I use the jars as “leftover” containers for the freezer or refrigerator, and especially admire the red and white checked tops.  A quality glass jar that is wide mouth is so useful in the kitchen.

         I buy it to be consumed, but, ‘himself’, my husband doesn’t grasp that they are expensive and he never replaces them with the same quality.  When he shops, he opts for the cheapest store brand.  It irks me – as you can tell – when he mentions, “This is really good cherry preserves or raspberry jam.”  I simply roll my eyes and say to myself, yeah, this leprechaun seems to be the only one who forks out the $$$$ for it.

         That is enough about my petty, perennial domestic dispute about jams, jelly, and preservatives as I am straying from the topic.

         Nevertheless, a month ago, I answered the telephone and it was a longtime friend, Palmer, from the Delmarva area.  We chatted a while and he asked to speak to my husband and I said, “He is out getting cat food, he doesn’t think ahead.”

         I got the biggest guffaw out of Palmer and he said, “Just like the Elaine, she will stop on the way home and pick up only one roll of toilet tissue, me I buy a 12-pack.”

         “I am just like you, I buy ahead on the things we use week in week out, and Russ, he buys the smallest size of cat food and then will run the roads to buy a small one every other day instead of the big one that will last for several days.”

         Palmer ticked off a catalog of items he buys in advance and I added additional items from my perpetual staples list in my head and then mentioned when I scan the discount ads in the local newspaper I make a mental note of the price and if I need to stock up.  He laughed and concurred that he did that as well.

         “You and I are the think-a-headers and Elaine and Russ are just the opposite,” Palmer concluded.

         So, we get to the topic of this blog – “To Pantry or not to Pantry.

         After my husband had his toasted croissant with Bonne Maman Cherry Preserves [the absolute best!] he said, “I am still hungry.”

         “How about a bowl of chilled peaches?”

         “You have chilled peaches?” he asked surprised.

         “Yeah, I always keep a can in the refrigerator.”

         “Where?”

         “Usually on the bottom shelf in the back on the left.”  I got up and went to the refrigerator and fished out a can of chilled fruit.

         “Sorry, this one happens to be pears, not peaches.”

         “That is even better,” came his reply.

         I went to my pantry and grabbed another can of fruit – room temperature – and put it in the refrigerator and then opened the can of chilled pears, dishing them out in my new bowls I’d found a couple weeks ago.

         “Oh, these are good,” he said through the slurps.

         I thought, yes, they are good – for a thinker-a-header wife.

         Note to self:  Straighten up my pantry and take an inventory; make sure I have a back-up of Bonne Maman.

Plan for what is difficult when it is easy,

do what is great while it is small.

– Sun Tzu



Always plan ahead.  It wasn’t raining

when Noah built the ark.

- Richard Cushing

