The return of the Pantry

[mattl]

Not to derail another thread but I think this is an interesting topic especially now.  Growing up, as a family of 4 we had a decent sized pantry. It was  about 3' wide with 18" deep shelves floor to ceiling, plus we had a root cellar in the basement filled with home canned goods.  Tomatoes, pickles, peaches, jams and jellies all home made.  The shelves of the pantry were filled with cans of everything we would ever use, plus flour, sugar and everything for baking.

 

That survived well into the 80's when I remodeled the kitchen.  Too much stuff got forgotten when stored that way so I designed the back side of my kitchen island as a one can deep small pantry,  Easy to see what was there and stuff didn't get overlooked.

 

Now I'm shifting back to a more substantial pantry.  I had been keeping a small amount of stuff on hand, but if I needed something other I'd jump in the car as stores are 5 minutes away and open 24/7.  Items are getting harder to find now and when I see something I might use I'll pick up one or two.  I have  about 15' of closets along the common wall between the garage and house and have cleaned off a couple of shelves for some of my bigger bulk purchases as 25 lbs or more of flour.  I always can tomatoes in the fall this year I will also freeze what ever other fresh produce I can find.

 

My folks grew up during the depression and my mother made sure we had stuff on hand due to the fact that the stores used to be further away and had limited hours.  Now I worry about just finding stuff going forward.

 

[circlew]

My sister's new kitchen has a pantry cabinet that is either 36" or 39" wide, 84" high, & 24" deep. It has roll out trays in the lower section, and divided storage for cookie sheets, etc. at the top.

 

[askolover]

I have two 18" wide by 24" deep pantry cabinets...one on each side of my SxS fridge.  They hold everything from bags of cat food, paper towel packs, cookie sheets, foil and plastic wraps, pyrex, small coolers, the blender, some canned food (like you said, it gets forgotten so not much put there), dry goods like beans and rice, boxed mixes, bags of cereal, chips, cast iron cookware, my pressure cookers, and stainless stock pots.  I have a smaller cabinet spanning between the two pantries and above the fridge.

 

[frigilux]

My pulmonologist told me back in January to begin stocking up on products like Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Lysol Disinfecting Spray, toilet paper, Kleenex, and canned/frozen meats/vegetables. He correctly predicted that there would be shortages once the virus began to spread. I was too slow on the draw to order N95 masks and lost that opportunity. He told me to be prepared to shelter in place for up to three months without leaving the apartment and to disinfect all grocery packaging as well as shoes. I thought he was crazy. Who knew?!

CDC has modified their recommendations and am no longer disinfecting food packaging. I bring everything that needs refrigeration or freezing in the house and leave the other groceries in the trunk of my car for a couple of days. That has significantly reduced the use of disinfecting wipes.

My pantry is what was probably meant as a narrow linen closet at the end of the hallway and an open-faced built-in in the living room.

I’m well stocked, so have no reason to buy large amounts of products at once. I simply replace a product every time one is taken from the pantry, which maintains a 3-month inventory. The only things I can’t get regularly are disinfecting wipes and Lysol Kitchen Pro cleaning spray. Was able to order a 4-pack of Lysol cleaner from Tri-State Camera, so did, despite the hefty price.

 

[thomasortega]

As a good Brazilian, I'm the "go to the supermarket 4x per week" to have everything super fresh.

I was never the kind of person that liked to have tons of food stored or using excess of industrialized foods. Meat, for example, i don't really like beef that was frozen. For me, it changes the flavor.

I also liked to have some "emergency" food... You know, a frozen lasagna or a frozen pizza in the freezer, FOR EMERGENCIES or for that busy that that I'm not really in the mood to cook.
I also HATE leftovers, so I try to calculate everything to avoid having leftovers. Of course, I can, for example, roast chicken tights and legs for dinner tonight and make more to intentionally have leftovers to make a risotto tomorrow (and save time), But it is very difficult to see me grabbing a "ready" left over from the fridge, reheating it and eating it.

I love cooking and I have time for that, I also love going to the groceries store so that's not a problem for me.

Until COVID-19 came and changed the world.

I'm very, very, very happy that over 1 year ago my husband and I bought 3 boxes of emergency "ration" food. We were actually making 3 emergency survival kits (one for here, one for my father in law and one for Kevin's house)

The day the Los Angeles Mayor decided to use the EAS to alert about the corona virus, Darryl and I rushed to the stores and we saw that pre-apocalyptic scene. Empty shelves, people buying everything, idiots hoarding toilet paper. We were able to buy almost nothing, but at least we bought enough for a few days.

Lockdown came several weeks confined at home. There was ONE day that I though "oh shit, I'll be forced to open the first emergency food bag and that will be my dinner". That same day Darryl arrived home with some groceries.

But that made me rethink several things about my life. One of the things is. I need to get rid of my side by side fridge because the freezer is ridiculous. I have that huge white elephant in my kitchen, the freezer is also huge, but nothing fits in it. Frigidaire was really unhappy with that design. If I have absolutely nothing in the freezer and I buy 2 frozen pizzas, for sure I'll have to bake one immediately because only one pizza fits in it (diagonally in the only shelf that doesn't have a tiny wire drawer) one of those large pizzas, NO WAY!

After getting rid of that fridge, I may even consider a second freezer. not big, maybe one of those that look like a mini-fridge because I'll have to keep it in the living room, so it will have to be something that "mix" well with the decor.

beef and leftovers, nah, I don't think I'll change those habits but chicken, frozen vegetables and even some lasagnas or pizzas more won't kill anybody.

And of course, everything considering it's only two people (eventually 4 when the Benz family comes for dinner). But keep a pantry full enough to, in case of another emergency, of if something else happens, I can spend at least 3 weeks without going to the supermarket.

Coincidentally this week we bought a new oven, Kitchenaid dual-convection countertop oven that will arrive next Sunday from Amazon so today I was cleaning up my tiny kitchen, OCD detailing my appliances, waxing and polishing the stand mixer (making the empire red shine like new again). You know, that spring cleaning that happens only every 10 springs.

I realized I need more cabinets (of course they'll have to invade the living room because my 100-year old kitchen is REALLY small.) So I'm thinking about a china cabinet/buffet, so I can store more food on the bottom, have drawers for my table linen (that I have to keep in my closet until now) then a space i can finally have the coffee maker, the toaster and also a espresso maker side-by-side and some cabinets on top to have several fancy glasses and my tea set that are still in the box or taking space in the kitchen cabinets.

 

[pulltostart]

I created a pantry in this house by relocating an opening and taking advantage of a recess in the kitchen.  It's not yuge, but large enough for 5 shelves and as noted above, when I go to the store and encounter things I always use and they're on sale, I now have space to store the goods.  My kitchen cabinets are very limited and the pantry also makes a great place to store cookware that isn't used often.

 

I did the same thing in my last home in Atlanta and loved the results.  That pantry was larger and I put the microwave in the pantry so I didn't have to see it out in the kitchen.

 

The first pantry that I remember belonged to an aunt of mine who lived down in Perry County, AL.  My uncle built a house in 1960 after he retired from the Navy and my aunt designed her kitchen to have no wall cabinets, but a very nice pantry.  Being retired USN, they would go to Craig AFB about every 2 weeks or so and shop at the commissary, otherwise they were 15 miles from "town".  That pantry was full of stuff and I loved how her kitchen looked without wall cabinets - lots of windows.

 

lawrence

 

[DADoES]

 
My parents have a closet in the kitchen behind the bar with floor-to-ceiling shelves and an extra refrigerator.  Mom calls it "the pantry" but uses mostly for non-food storage.

The food-pantry is a floor-to-ceiling double-door cabinet next to the double walloven where the previous owner stored all of her silver-service items.

 

[chachp]

Pantry

 

<span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;">Ours is a double door job with a lot of shelves and storage on the doors to the left of the refrigerator.  I just cleaned it last week and I have to say, an organized pantry sure makes cooking life a lot easier and when I need to take inventory of what we need it's so much easier.  I don't know why I didn't do it sooner.  Well I guess I do, it wasn't a lot of fun checking dates on everything,  etc.</span>

 

[xraytech]

I’d love to have a pantry, but my galley kitchen with breakfast nook doesn’t permit one.
I have one upper cabinet 40” w x 42” h that is used for food storage.

Luckily I have a cellar under both of my porches, accessed from the basement.
The smaller 4’ x 4’ cellar is my fruit cellar that has shelving to store my home canned items, as well as empty mason jars and supplies.
My larger porch about 8’ x 20’ is the coal cellar, I use 2/3 of it for storing firewood. I think I’m going to install a shelving unit along the one 8’ wall for additional canned good storage.

With the difficulty of finding products at grocery store lately, I’ve since turned my Tell City maple console chest in living room into an overflow storage place for store bought canned goods, pasta, and rice

I also have a 22 cu ft chest freezer full of meat and last years tomatoes