Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Blogs and Spices, or, In Which I Tentatively and Humbly Restart this Bloggy Thing

I am a chronic blog lurker, because it is a good distraction that doesn't require me to produce coherent and publishable thoughts. But in recent months, my usual suspects have either quit blogging (bad when they are the beautiful and inspiring sort like Pleasant View Schoolhouse) or become boring (good when they are the hyper-fundamentalist sort that I use to provoke myself to a pretense of "righteous indignation"). So I return here with the esoteric subject of my spice cabinet.

Yesterday I bought smoked paprika for the first time for a recipe from my new favorite cooking blog. Today it elevated popcorn to a new height of sublimity. I don't understand people who have only half a dozen spices in their pantries. But I do envy their tidiness. I try to buy mine at the bulk section of the health food store because it's easily a quarter of the price, but the result is two shoeboxes full of different sizes of jars and little unlabeled plastic bags which I have to identify by color and smell every time I cook. (Is that garlic powder or fenugreek?) No mistakes yet, but it's bound to happen sometime. I have no wall space for those handy mounted racks. What's the answer?

6 comments:

Rachelle said...

Welcome back....Please tell me you still read me and I'm not hyper fundamentalist.

Laura said...

Hi Dana,

I'm not sure if you remember me, Laura Marshall from PHC, and I can't remember how I stumbled across your blog (probably another PHC student), but as a fellow grad student (Classics), I love your posts.

I haven't tried this spice organization technique yet, but it looks like a good solution: use metal canisters with magnetic backs and clear lids and place on the fridge door (or any other magnetic surface). Here's an example pic in which the fridge is painted with chalkboard paint to allow spice labeling.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55463415@N00/3460132155/in/set-72157617011758029/

I'm getting pretty fed up with my spice drawer; I may try this soon.

Laura

Laura said...

. . . and a better description of how to do this cheaply:

http://robert-cowan.com/blog/?p=27

Dana said...

Oh that last set on the side of the fridge might actually work! As long as it doesn't look too cluttered, because I already have to store my pots on the top of the fridge and my knive-rack and my spoon and spatula canister on the counter next to it. Thanks, Laura.

Darce said...

I really like Pleasant View Schoolhouse. Thank you for sharing. Miss you.

Pinon Coffee said...

I'm glad you're back, too!

Rather than the chalkboard idea, I could visualize you making really adorable labels directly on your containers, whatever you wind up using. I have somewhat unimaginative ones Scotch-taped to the individual bags.