Room
Pantry
The pantry is where you find out the difference between what you buy and what you actually eat. Almost everything that goes wrong on these shelves is one of two things: food you cannot see, and food you already owned when you bought it again. Start with the dry goods shelves, because that is where the oldest opened bags are hiding, and emptying them gives every other zone somewhere to put things.
The 5 micro zones, in working order
A micro zone is one session, not a whole day. Finish one before you start the next.
- The Dry Goods Shelves (45-75 min)
Holds the grains, pasta and cereals you actually cook from in a normal week. - The Canned and Jarred Goods (30-45 min)
Holds the cans and jars that turn an empty-fridge week into dinner. - The Baking Zone (30-45 min)
Holds everything you need to start a bake without a trip to the shop first. - The Snack and Lunch Zone (30-45 min)
Holds what goes into a lunchbox, and what a child is allowed to take without asking. - The Backstock and Bulk (45-75 min)
Holds the reserve that feeds the working shelves, and nothing else.
For this room
- {'label': 'Where to start', 'text': 'Take one shelf completely off and onto the counter before you decide anything. A shelf sorted in place keeps its own history, and the bag that got pushed behind the cereal two years ago stays behind the cereal.'}
- {'label': 'Cleaning note', 'text': 'Wipe shelves with mild soap and dry them fully, and while you are down there look into the corners of the flour, oat and rice containers for fine webbing or a small moth. A dry shelf and a properly sealed container are the whole of your pest plan.'}
- {'label': 'The trap', 'text': "Decanting everything. Move flour, sugar, rice and cereal into containers if you like, but leave the sauce jar and the curry paste in their own packaging, because that label is carrying the date and the cooking instructions you will want at six o'clock."}