We've been clearing out the pantry

[conuly]

I urgently need to get new containers (jars! jars! more jars!) but I'm also wondering... what sort of staples do other people have? I know what I always have stocked no matter what (smoked paprika, smoked salt, fennel seeds...) but what about everybody else?

****************************

Things I Never Knew About Skiing Until I Was a Private Instructor in Aspen

When Divorce Was Off the Table, English Couples Dissolved Their Marriages With Beer

Why China is obsessed with numbers

Coming of age in cohousing

The progressive to-do list is missing a very important idea: Daycare for all

Decolonizing Science Writing in South Africa

Cleaning routine shows promise in curbing superbug infection

They went to an abandoned home to smoke weed. Inside, they found a tiger.

Red flags emerge as Americans' debt load hits another record

A High-Crime Neighborhood Makes It Harder To Show Up For School

After Parkland, Schools Upped Police Presence. Has It Made Students Safer?

Is it love? Maybe not, as romance scams proliferate

Sexist Jokes Make Men Think Sexist Behavior Is Okay, Study Says

Study Details How Phone Companies Prey on Families of Inmates in Local Jails

The combination of my father’s alcoholism and my disability was a dangerous one. (Content note: Child abuse)

Southern Baptist Convention report on sex abuse shines a light on evangelical culture

Comments

[gatheringrivers]

A copious array of spices, including such oddities as Amchur, Galingal, and Cubeb.

Various flours in canning jars (bug proof, and less messy than bags), sugars of various types (cane, coconut, etc.) also in jars, Pretty much if it's shelf stable and came in a bag, it's going to go in a jar. Boxed stuff *usually* goes in jars as well, but it depends on the thing.

Canning jars also get spice overflow (I sometimes buy things in 1-pound bulk packs, and refill the spice jars from the overflow jars.)

There's some commercial canned things too - beans, commercial soups and the like.

I do have meat in jars! Properly pressure canned, of course.

[conuly]

Sad to say, jars aren't 100% secure against pantry moths, but they're a heck of a lot better (and, as you say, less messy) than bags.

[gatheringrivers]

I've yet to find a pantry moth in my canning jars, or do you mean just "trace smells attracting them anyway despite most of the product being secured"?

[conuly]

It's unusual, but it does happen that particularly determined pantry moths will make their way into jars. I DO NOT KNOW HOW. I SWEAR I FREEZE IT ALL WHEN I COME HOME.

[gatheringrivers]

LULZ! Ok, fair enough! :)

Might be that the moths may have been in the factory, made their way into the bag, and thus poured into the jars? Or their eggs? *shrugs* They're kinda low on the totem pole of pests in my book - annoying, yes, but not on the scale of, say, bedbugs...

[conuly]

That's why I freeze everything before it goes into jars, so theoretically that can't happen. I think that I just have a particularly determined breed.