Food hoarding pays off

Ok, this is NOT a response to bradhicks's post about what not to stockpile right now.

At least, it's not an intentional response to that post.

Food hoarding as a minor mental illness had never even been presented to me until someone I knew self-identified as a Food Hoarder. She explained that it was related to her other eating disorders and that she tends to still squirrel away packaged foods here and there.

I never considered that I might be a hoarder, until I looked at my Mom. At Mom's house, it is possible to go grocery shopping because there's "Nothing to eat" in the house, return home, and be unable to put the cold stuff away because there's no room in the fridge. I occasionally still find cans or boxes of food that were moved from the previous house. She could feed a village in Ethiopia with the contents of her pantry/fridge/deep freeze for a SEASON, yet complains that she has nothing to put out at a party.

Something happened during the last round of summertime power outages around here. We lost the contents of the fridge during the summer time. For all practicaly purposes, we did a complete purge and scrub down.

And for the first time in my entire life, I began with an empty fridge.

I bought only the condiments that I actually EAT. I bought basic consumables and then consumed them. I can see most of the things in my fridge just by opening the door and glancing in.

You know what? I still occasionally have leftovers that try to form sentience, and I still wind up having to pitch things that have wandered past their expiration date, but even after I return triumphant from the grocery store I have room in my fridge.
I have room in my fridge AFTER I put the food away. Yeah. Like that!

I've been pawing through the cupboards and pantries in preparations for the move. Little leftover food hoardings meet me more often than I'd like. Weird things, things that moved with us (groan) over 6 years ago. Last summer I was bemused to discover four open boxes of graham crackers, probably bought on my way to various camping events because I forgot that I even owned any graham crackers and wanted S'mores. Some of those crackers have fed the wildlife outside the back sliding door to provide Cat TV for my 'Bel. See, I don't actually eat graham crackers except as a conveyance for toasted marshmellows and chocolate or Nutella.

But I find that I'm eagerly looking forward to the impending move, and part of the process is paring down the contents of the house. This means...

EATING THE FOOD HOARD!!! MWA HA HA!!!

I have Scallops. I have shrimp. I have baking goods. I have frozen asparagus spears (and they steam up beautifully!) I have celery, which is not so exciting until you realize that I also have a precious last jar of Cashew Butter. (Trader Joe's has quit carrying cashew butter. WTF?) I have biscuits in tubes that won't probably travel well. I have a couple of cans of apricot nectar in the back of the fridge winking at me.

And a buttload of Girl Scout Cookies. Yep.
I *also* have one precious package of Hydrox (forgotten behind the rice and soy nuts.) I found the booze-chocolates. I found the caviar crackers. (Just crackers. The kind you put caviar on, not crackers made with fish eggs.)

So tonight I planned to steam some of my recently acquired treasures from the Asian Market. Instead I cooked up some scallops and jasmine rice with saffron, boiled (briefly) some asparagus, and made a delicious meal.

Time to dig up the squirrel hoard!!!