Life Got A Little Spicy

We have been moving through the house, decluttering as we much as we can.

It takes time and it is emotionally taxing, so we have to set aside weekends or whole days to an area or a project. During the week or when things are busy, we try to identify an area that is contained and seems manageable.

Nearly two weeks ago, we thought we would sort our spices. It seemed simple enough….

We like to cook from scratch. We want to control what is in our food as much as possible, so we make as much as possible and try to get the rest from local farms, or in its most basic non-GMO form. This means we use a lot of spices. We also keep a lot of backups on hand. How much can that be?

As we have progressed with our decluttering, we have evolved to use a mix-up of Marie Kondo (everything of a kind out at one time) along with Dana White (declutter as you can. Even just a drawer.) Throw in a little Peter Walsh (define what each room/area is for) and some Allie Casazza and you have our own customized little process.

In this case it means that we were focused only on spices, but that in order to tackle spices, we pulled out ALL of the spices. No matter where they were.

We started by pulling all of the spices out from the spice cupboard. So far, so good. Next, we had overflow spices in another cupboard.

‘Wow, there’s more there than we realized.’ we thought.

As we were pulling the spices down, we were putting them on the counters. ‘Should be plenty of room, right?’

But then it kept going.

‘Let’s see, oh yeah, there’s the spices we keep on the table. And then there’s the ones we use frequently that we keep on the counter for cooking. And there’s the backups on top of the cupboards. And the backups in the cupboards. And then there’s the backups in the pantries. And then there’s the backups on the floor that never got put anywhere. Then there’s the ones my mom gave us literally sitting on a chair in the corner that we forgot about.’

By the time we got everything out, the spices covered all of our counter space and our kitchen table.

We were in shock.

We had no idea we had so much. Where did it all come from? When did we get it all? Why did we get so much?

Having it all in one place is a real eye opener. It is also very helpful.

This is also one time I was really kicking myself. In awe of the situation and with the desire to dive into it, I forgot to take any pictures.

Describing the scene to you is one thing, actually seeing it is another. I wish you could see that I was not exaggerating. Oh well, live and learn.

We were able to see that we had three different chili powder containers, two of them open. We were able to combine all three into the one nearly empty container. We had three garlic powders. Two onion powders (and this does NOT include the backups!), etc.

We went through and sorted and combined and after awhile, we had reduced a lot of space by just combining duplicates.

Then we went through and started looking at different spices. Some we had bought for one recipe and never used again. Some we hated and they had drifted to the back of the cupboard to never be used again. We got rid of all of those.

Some were very old. For example, I went through a period where we made a lot of Indian dishes. It was fun but time consuming and I found easier ways to do it. Those spices were over ten years old now and I forgot we had most of them. Away they went.

We decided we didn’t need that much duplication in having spices ready in the cupboard, on the counter and at the table. So we were able to reduce some of that.

We realized that we had one backup of some things and five of others. Now we were able to decide how many backups we wanted to keep of which spice and what “container” space we had to fit it in. All backups had to fit in that space or we would just need to keep less.

We then put the spices back intentionally, which we’ve never done before.

We placed all of the spices used most frequently on one shelf. We put those spices in boxes with shallow sides so you can pull out the box and bring the spices with it instead of pulling out each individual spice. We number the boxes from the front and made a sheet with the spices listed alphabetically and numbered. Then we put that number on the top of the spice lid. We taped that sheet inside the cabinet door at the level of that shelf. We did the same thing with the other spices not-so-frequently used on the other shelves.

Now when you want a spice, you open the cabinet door and look at the list. You find the spice on the list and you see the box number and lid number. Pull down the shallow box, look for that number and you have the spice.

No more pulling out 20+ spices and reading every label to try and find the one you are looking for.

I tested it the other night. My parents were visiting and I asked my mom to find Parsley Flakes. I told her there was a list of the spices on the cupboard door. Then I just watched and waited. My mom likes a challenge so she went over to the cupboard and opened it. She looked at the list. She pulled out the right box and pulled out the flakes. It took her about 15 seconds.

She had never used this system before. She did not know how things were organized. She did not know what kind of bottle the Parsley Flakes were in. She came into this blind and pulled out the proper spice in 15 seconds. It takes us less than 5.

Now we can easily access our spices. We know exactly what is there and we know where the backups are. Everything is now in just two places (other than the salt and pepper on the table). Either it is in the spice cabinet, organized, or it is in the backup section of the pantry.

We have had the spices organized for a couple weeks now and cooking has never been easier. It’s hard to describe how much difference such a small change has made.

So much joy and peace found in such a simple thing.

It makes us even more excited to tackle the whole kitchen. And we will get to that soon.

Stay tuned!