Organizing resumes: foodstuffs
May. 20th, 2009 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneYesterday I got back to organizing physical objects instead of digital files. I sorted my pantry.
My apartment has a very strange pantry. The kitchen is small and the pantry is actually a series of cupboard shelves in the hallway between the kitchen and the Scary Room. There are four sets of matched cupboards, two on top and two to the floor. Each has four shelves that run through both sets of upper or lower shelves.
These are very wide shelves: from the inside corner of the left cupboard to the far inside of the right cupboard is 64 inches, all of which is one shelf (divided on the outside by the doors but not on the inside). Each shelf is between nine and thirteen inches high -- but only eight inches deep. This means you can fit canned foods about two deep and usually two high but many along. Unfortunately it also means most spare cooking equipment cannot be stored here (most of my cookware starts around ten inches in diameter).
Since my roommate is half a foot taller than I am, he gracefully chose the top two cabinets so that I could use the bottom two. He has a step stool for the very highest stuff, which I use to sit when I need to contemplate cooking ideas.
I got tired of barely being able to shove things into these cabinets. I decided to empty almost everything out and start fresh. Liquor bottles stayed on the lowest level, since the risk of shattering and the need for the tallest shelves (which are on the bottom) determines their fates. Thus my cooking wine, drinking wine and two-liter of cane sugar Coke from before Pesach remained where they were.
Then I came up with a good idea: put the protein-based foods on one shelf (going from beans to fish to sausages, in order of meaty-ness) and the vegetables on another. Then I put the spicy foundations and sauces (coconut milk, jars of Thai goo) on the top level with room to spare for cooking oil (a high-use item) as well as tea and coffee.
All of the above took up one of the cupboards. In the other cabinet I placed the grains and cereals and the few cooking devices I could fit.
Suddenly I had room for expansion on each side and could see what I had. I could view at a glance which proteins were available and which veggies and sauces would go with them. Then I could find a suitable grain (rice, noodles, even oatmeal) and get going.
This worked well that evening. I grabbed some potted meat (which is the American version of paté), some wheat bread, a whole carrot and a mandarin orange and ate. Then I realized I hadn't had much dairy that day, so I put some bran cereal in a big cup and snarfed a little. It all worked fine.
-something completely work-safe, Dante
My apartment has a very strange pantry. The kitchen is small and the pantry is actually a series of cupboard shelves in the hallway between the kitchen and the Scary Room. There are four sets of matched cupboards, two on top and two to the floor. Each has four shelves that run through both sets of upper or lower shelves.
These are very wide shelves: from the inside corner of the left cupboard to the far inside of the right cupboard is 64 inches, all of which is one shelf (divided on the outside by the doors but not on the inside). Each shelf is between nine and thirteen inches high -- but only eight inches deep. This means you can fit canned foods about two deep and usually two high but many along. Unfortunately it also means most spare cooking equipment cannot be stored here (most of my cookware starts around ten inches in diameter).
Since my roommate is half a foot taller than I am, he gracefully chose the top two cabinets so that I could use the bottom two. He has a step stool for the very highest stuff, which I use to sit when I need to contemplate cooking ideas.
I got tired of barely being able to shove things into these cabinets. I decided to empty almost everything out and start fresh. Liquor bottles stayed on the lowest level, since the risk of shattering and the need for the tallest shelves (which are on the bottom) determines their fates. Thus my cooking wine, drinking wine and two-liter of cane sugar Coke from before Pesach remained where they were.
Then I came up with a good idea: put the protein-based foods on one shelf (going from beans to fish to sausages, in order of meaty-ness) and the vegetables on another. Then I put the spicy foundations and sauces (coconut milk, jars of Thai goo) on the top level with room to spare for cooking oil (a high-use item) as well as tea and coffee.
All of the above took up one of the cupboards. In the other cabinet I placed the grains and cereals and the few cooking devices I could fit.
Suddenly I had room for expansion on each side and could see what I had. I could view at a glance which proteins were available and which veggies and sauces would go with them. Then I could find a suitable grain (rice, noodles, even oatmeal) and get going.
This worked well that evening. I grabbed some potted meat (which is the American version of paté), some wheat bread, a whole carrot and a mandarin orange and ate. Then I realized I hadn't had much dairy that day, so I put some bran cereal in a big cup and snarfed a little. It all worked fine.
-something completely work-safe, Dante
