Food Hoarding

I was having a discussion with someone recently about hoarding.

Adoring Husband's mother was a hoarder and it took us a LONG time to clean out her house of 30 years worth of hoarding. At least she was a tidy hoarder and everything was stored in boxes which were neatly stacked against the walls, albeit six boxes high and three or four deep!

AH shows signs of being hoarder material, but isn't too bad. I must admit that I too have the makings of a hoarder, but tend to pull in the reins just in the nick of time.

I do admit, however, to being a food hoarder! I only just realised this morning that I do have this problem.

I guess it's worse because we live fairly remotely and we don't have instant access to 'uncommon' foods like the organic nuts and seeds, coconut in it's various forms, raw cacao, non-grain flours, quality himalayan salt, fermented foods & vinegars, some herbs and oils.

So when I buy it, I buy large quantities and store it in our increasingly shrinking pantry. Our pantry is not a walk-in and has very deep shelving, so when I need to find something, I'm often completely emptying it, to access the particular item I require.

I try to make a list of what we need, but sometimes, I'll see something and can't remember if we are running low or not, so buy it 'just in case', only to discover that I still have plenty at home.

This means more storage containers and more space filled and less room available and great difficulties seeing what I'm actually looking for at any given time.

My future plans involve renovating the kitchen to include a large walk-in pantry with enough shelving and power points to permanently set up my blender, food processor, dehydrator, juicer etc., so that I don't have to be dragging these things in and out of cupboards every time I need to use them.

I use my blender and food processor almost daily and I would use the others more regularly, if I wasn't put off by getting down low to drag them out of their storage spot, because they can be quite cumbersome.

I have many ideas, which simply makes it a jumbled mess in my head. I need to find a professional who can make ordered sense of my jumble and who can create my dream kitchen.

Anyway, I'm writing this in my study break, so I'd best get back to it.

Here is a photo from the archives. One that I have never shared before ..

Afternoon all.