Spices

Allow me to move away from the wardrobe and enter the kitchen. My humble Indian kitchen is screaming for decluttering. I have nobody else but myself to blame for it.

I do consider myself to be a minimalist when it comes to buying produce. I would generally buy only that type of fresh produce that I would need it. I may keep a little spare in my refrigerator but it is under control. My fridge is never over flooding with vegetables and fruits that are waiting for their turn to be used. But there is something that keeps piling and waits for its uncertain future. Their future is either ending up in the food or in the dustbin. Their future life somewhere in between but they had been jailed in the refrigerator. They are the taste makers - spices.

I have always been a curious cook in the kitchen. I would love trying new recipes. I still do. Most of the times what I cook turns out to be good. And to fullfill the need for trying various dishes I tend to buy a lot of spices. One type of spice for dry vegetables. One type of spice for curries. One type of spice for egg and chicken dishes. One type of spice for curd and buttermilk. So on and so forth. The list is never ending. To fulfill the needs of each type of dish I ended up buying multiple types of spices. When I looked at the refrigerator and the spice rack I understood that there is a need to declutter.

How I decided that I am going to declutter:

• First was the smell test. For some of the spices I did not like their smell. If it did not pass the smell test then I decided to discard it in the dustbin.
• Some of the spices had completely lost their aroma and had captured the smell of the fridge. This spices would have been completely useless hence I decided to discard them.
• Then came the verification of the expiration date. Surprisingly I found that a lot of spices had expired and they were still lying around. They had no business in my spice rack. They had to go away.
• Then came the blended spices which I had seldom used. Looking at each box and packet, I could conclude whether I had used it rarely or was using it frequently. For the rarely used spices I tried to see whether I can use them frequently or they were only to be used for the dishes that would be made occasionally. Deciding the fate of these spices was little difficult.

Using some of these test I was able to discard a lot of packets of spices. Now my spice rack only had those spices which I had been using frequently and I was enjoying using them. Then I decided that henceforth I would buy only those spices which would be versatile. Also I would only by the small samples of the spices so that they would not take a lot of space.

This was one simple way by which I cleaned up my spice rack. I hope this method would be helpful to you as well.