I Miss My Pantry

Listen to me whimper. (Not really.) I miss my pantry. (Really.)

Ah, the good old days of three months ago. I was eating through my small house’s pantry as I prepared to sell the house and move - somewhere, which ended up being a tiny house. From suburban large to bungalow small to now my new old big tiny house, it has been a progression. I miss some floor space, but I really miss pantry space. Don’t worry. I’m coping. But…

In some ways, my tiny house kitchen is larger than the kitchens in all of my previous houses except one. (My wife at the time designed an excellent kitchen.) My tiny kitchen (sounds like the title of a Food Network show, or should be) is full-width and open to the rest of the house. The island is on wheels (another great image to mis-interpret) which either opens lots of floor space or trundles in to create a larger workspace. Nice.

Some day I’ll talk about the appliances, but today’s post is about something I experience almost every day. This house has no pantry. When I use the word pantry, I’m thinking of a dry, cool, dark place - just the conditions many products recommend for storage. (The products aren’t talking, but their producers have ideas.) I’ve never had the ideal, which is closer to a root cellar, someplace somewhat subterranean, maybe with a little window that invariably gets coated with cobwebs, and a door that blocks most but not all of the airflow. As I type this, how about the ideal of a root cellar and a pantry? Add a wine cellar. A place for cheese and smoked meats? I digress, as usual.

The house I recently sold had something more modest. It was a half-height cupboard/closet at the back of the alley kitchen. Never the hottest. Never the coldest. Blocked from the light. As dry as the humidity dictated. Convenient. It wasn’t everything, but it was stocked with months of food.

It never felt over-stocked, until I tried to eat my way through it. I shop sales, or at least I did. A case of tomato sauce. Bottles of various cooking oils. Some hung onions and such. Lots of pastas, beans, and rices. Powdered milk and eggs and such for emergencies - which never arose. More stuff than I can remember.

All gone, except for the emergency powdered stuff which now resides on an almost inaccessible shelf in an inconvenient cupboard.

I have plenty of shelf space in my tiny. One shelf for tea, with some spillover (I wrote a book about tea, so that’s no surprise - Kettle Pot Cup). A shelf for a few cans of this, or a few boxes of that. A few bottles of oil sit on the counter. Spices get two shelves because I like to cook. And, of course, lots of the remaining shelves dedicated to plates and cookware, and drawers of silverware (only silver in color) and utensils. It is a plenty to celebrate that would be luxurious in much of the world.

But.

I miss my pantry. I miss knowing that I have the raw ingredients to cook almost anything in my mental cookbook. It has become too easy to get down to one can of something, or to forget that I used up the right beans and only have the wrong beans. Teas and spices are still fine, but they don’t take much space. I no longer have to be prepared for frequent power outages, a fact of island life, but those supplies are a different kind of comfort food, ready and waiting. Where’s my case of tuna fish? Where would I store it?

Partly what my lack of a pantry means is that I am leading a more conventional life. (Gasp. The horror.) Instead of shopping the big sales, I’m shopping a few times a week, sometimes just for this meal or that. I’m eating out more, which usually reminds me that I prefer my cooking. Ordering in a restaurant has devolved into asking the wait staff to act as a mini-visit to my naturopath as I try to discern the restaurant cook’s ingredients list. Gluten-free? Skip any cream sauce. Nothing too sweet, alas.

As I gaze at what’s on my kitchen counter I see a small stack of recyclable deli containers that the local food coop will clean and reuse. Gotta remember to put them in the car, and take them out when I go shopping there.

A more conventional life is not necessarily a bad life, but in comparison, I miss my pantry and the wealth of ready options it provided. A full pantry is also food freedom. That’s true comfort food. Now, how can I create a wine cellar in a tiny house that came on wheels? Dig a hole and hope the raccoons don’t find it?

I miss my pantry.