We had a mouse problem recently. This meant putting sticky traps all over the cupboards & taking everything out of the cupboards, washing it or checking it for mouse contamination, washing the cupboards themselves & then putting everything back, but in better sealed containers.
I should know by now that cleaning anything in my kitchen is bound to provide blog fodder & that I ought to go get my camera for ‘before’ photos before I start.
I have no shame. I share my embarrassing bad housekeeping skills with the world willingly because even a bad example is still an example & someone may think to themselves “you know, it has been awhile since I cleaned out my fridge” & be inspired by me.
That’s my story & I am sticking to it.
My mom, right now, is cursing the day she joined Facebook and gained access to my blog feed.
The snack cupboard held no surprises because everything in it is in heavy rotation. It gets emptied & filled regularly & at various points every one of the 4 people in this house will poke around the entire cupboard checking to see if anyone hid the last few Oreos from the rest of us somewhere in the back behind & under the bags of dried fruit.
We never find anything because we are all much more clever than that.
The oil & vinegar cupboard is another story. I’m the only one who gets in it & then because it is up so high I can’t actually see what is there beyond what it is in the front of it. If what I want isn’t visible I have to go get the step ladder & even then, those are tall bottles.
This is all the stuff that I had already removed from the oil & vinegar cupboard when I realized I had blog fodder to document
This is what caused me to go get the camera
Hey! That white bag looks familiar somehow.
Could it be?
Oh my GOD! it is! Chocolate raspberry Milanos!!! And there are still cookies in the bag!!!
Wait a minute.
I haven’t bought Milanos in forever. When did I buy these? 
Sell by 10/05/2008!?!?!
Who forgets about chocolate Milanos in the cupboard for almost 2 years?
Obviously I thought I was being clever hiding them behind & among the vinegars but apparently I was too clever for myself & never found them again.
Then I was left with quite a dilemma... can you eat 2 year old Milanos? Wasting Milanos is a major sin in my religion. But it’s one I had already committed by leaving them there for 2 years in the first place so I don’t think I am compounding it by not eating them now.
Probably the best thing to do, especially given the mouse issue, is just pitch them. So after some prayer on the matter, which consisted of inhaling deeply over the bag, I did toss them in the trash with the rancid oil and the vinegars I could not recall using in the past year, as long as they had the requisite layer of dust on them. Given my memory & cleaning habits it’s probable the dustless ones that I can’t recall using have actually been used in the past few months.
But it does leave me with another dilemma.
Does vinegar go bad? There are no expiration dates on the bottles & while I know balsamics can be aged for years & years, possibly leaving a half full bottle in my cupboard does not really count as ‘aging’. I have 3 opened bottles of apple cider vinegar. I have no idea why. I have no idea which is the most recent. Do I pitch them all & start over? Can I pour them all into one bottle & get on with life?
Anyone?
16 comments:
I share this dilemma. Vinegar's a preservative, right? But I don't think it's supposed to go dark and cloudy... At that point I do chuck it out! But I keep mine in a low cupboard, so I do tend to check them more regularly. As far as I can peer by kneeling on the kitchen floor, anyway.
Occasionally I find a carefully stashed chocolate bar or packet of cookies, and I can never quite believe it....
Ha! Who does stuff like this? I do.
I think you're safe on the apple cider vinegar. The others? I'm still aging mine, so I can't tell you.
As far as I understand it, vinegar doesn't go bad, per se. However, if you get that cloudy film/skin/floater thing going on, that's called "mother" and can be extracted and used to make your own vinegar from other wines.
Glad to see you are cleaning the fridge. Hope that includes the freezer.
Me! I do something like this... often... I too have packets or bottles lurking on high shelves, which haven't been used for ... oooh, maybe a year or two (because I did actually clear the cupboards out a while back!!). I also hide things... I too have been forced to throw away delectable morsels of yumminess, simply because I was too clever for my own good and forgot where I had hidden them.
I.feel.your.pain. (I also laugh at it, but that's because I sympathise - honest!).
Great post Mel - made me laugh!
Love, love, love the story today! I have definitely noticed "changes" that take place in my vinegars (color, consistency, weird blobs that form at the bottom), so I chuck them when they look funky.'
Rinda
YOU LOST MILANO COOKIES????
You...you...you need to go sit in that corner and THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE.
Honestly.
Go. I'll tell you when you can come out.
You're gonna be there a while.
lol, Oops on the cookies. Too funny. Bummer on the mouse. I stick with the if it looks different then I'd get off the shelf in goes in the trash but I don't know much about vinegars, maybe it does that? lol
I think I could eliminate half (or more) of the stuff in my cupboards and never miss it! At least you know, for future reference, where to hide your cookies!
Too funny about the cookies! What a shame. :)
I have no idea about the vinegar, but holy shit woman, I don't think I could have thrown out the cookies. Unless they were covered in mold, I would have inhaled them. I mean, they're "milano" ... that's like throwing away perfectly good gold just because it has a little dust on it.
If it doesn't look like something is growing in it, it should be safe assuming it's been tightly sealed. Apple cider vinegar does have sugar in it, so if the acidity of the vinegar drops, then it can grow stuff. If it's cloudy, it's a good idea to dump it.
Keep the vinegar!
Also, just eat the cookies. What could go wrong? Anyway that's what I do with my years-old pocket-after-dinner-mints and top shelf of the cupboard chocolate bar stashes.
We have a shop in our town....my kids used to call it 'the antique food shop'....it has shelves and shelves of bottles,jars,cans,packets.......that are seriously out of date.....and I do mean seriously.....and with our draconian health + safety laws....thay couldn't sell it if it wasn't safe to eat....could they?????
That story about the Milanos is a WEEPER. I think you should perhaps go out and get another bag. I think the expired Milanos would have wanted it that way.
YOU LOST MILANO COOKIES????
You...you...you need to go sit in that corner and THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE.
Honestly.
Go. I'll tell you when you can come out.
You're gonna be there a while.
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