Cleaning My Cabinet of Doom Helped Me Find Inspiration
My homestead was suffering and something had to be done, starting with the Cabinet of Doom.
You probably have one in your kitchen, too–or your garage or your barn. You know the one: hard to access, bursting with junk that falls on you when you open the door, and a bonus element of the sinister: possible spiders or a sharp blade.
Well, my cabinet of doom was in the kitchen, and its awfulness was multi-layered. For one thing, it was a corner cabinet in a kitchen built for tall people. I am not a “tall people.” For another, the most awkward shelves I had ever seen did nothing to provide useful storage. But the worst part? Someone had spilled molasses months ago, and I did not have the courage to clean it up.
I blamed this cabinet for all of my homesteading failures and delays.
Didn’t start the sauerkraut because the Cabinet of Doom hid my fermentation weights.
Bought breakfast cereal instead of using up the oatmeal in food storage because the brown sugar container was stuck to the molasses spill in the Cabinet of Doom.
Forgot to stake the bean plants because merely walking by the Cabinet of Doom had drained me of all motivation.
The truth was, I was seriously suffering from a mental block of some kind that I had not overcome in several months. I had an uncharacteristic and strong aversion to the kitchen. Cooking sounded like a monumental task, and I avoided it at all costs. The family was eating frozen pizza on paper plates, while outside, organic food was in full production. The irony was not lost on me, and the guilt lay heavy.
As you know, guilt is not a motivator, but a life-sucker. One chore after another was neglected, and as the summer heat and wicked grasshoppers set in, I became more and more listless. My apathy spilled over onto the family.
It was a crisis. The Big Table Homestead was suffering and something had to be done, starting with the Cabinet of Doom.
Finally, I did what every wise woman does when she needs to put on her Big Girl Pants and face a tough job: she makes her husband help. Those shelves had to come out! I handed my husband his power tools and sailed right past the “could you maybe please” stage of negotiation straight to “I will cry if you don’t do this for me today.”
Thankfully, he complied, and within moments, I was committed. With the useless shelves removed, dozens of long-forgotten items littering the counters, and the sink full of molasses-encrusted jars, there was no escape. I had to clean and organize it.
And that is how the homestead was saved. Because I found something amazing in the Cabinet of Doom.
I rescued about ten different kinds of tea, and sorted them into an attractive box at the coffee station. But that wasn’t the amazing thing. The cheese grater emerged from the darkness and I washed it and placed it with other food prep items, and made a mental note that we could now buy bulk cheese blocks again. But that was not the thing that saved the homestead. I poured boiling water on the molasses spill and tasked a Tall Boy with scraping it, and realized the cabinet was actually quite nice when clean. But that was not the surprise that I found in the Cabinet of Doom.
It was hidden deeper, behind the spices.
The spice section was a precarious pyramid. I discovered that we had two little jars of Pumpkin Pie Spice, and because I only make pumpkin pie once per year, I decided to set aside the older one. I found two jars of Poultry Seasoning, which I only use on turkey (you guessed it) once per year. I set aside the older one. I could never in five years use up the large jar of cloves, so I set that aside, too. And reaching past the empty jars I was saving so that Fantasy Me could buy bulk spices and undertake the tedious task of refilling them, I found it:
Inspiration.
It took the form of a dusty old packet of Tikka Masala spices. I held the crinkly cellophane in my hand and inspected the contents: a chili, two cinnamon sticks, and some other random Indian seed pods I couldn’t identify but were sure to be spicy and exotic. I love spicy and exotic seasonings, but not if they are ten years old and dusty. You know who really hates spicy and exotic seasonings?
Squash bugs.
I snatched up the extra poultry seasoning, the pumpkin pie spice, and the Tikka Masala packet. I am sure the squash bugs could hear my flip-flops coming as I hurried to my beloved zucchini plant. The one and only survivor of the six or so that I had started inside in March, this giant was producing the first-ever zucchinis on the homestead and I literally had nightmares about a vine borer or infestation of squash bugs taking it out.
I popped the cinnamon sticks into the soil around the main vine and lightly dusted some of the cloves and poultry seasoning on the undersides of the leaves and at the base of the plant. Two squash bugs scurried out of hiding, engaging in an intimate act. I was pleased to interrupt the act with a swift and decisive murder.
Something in me broke. I forgave myself for the weeks of apathy.
I swept through the garden, spicing up the soil, committing murder, and harvesting some fresh dill and (oh, exciting day!) my first-ever shishito peppers. I hurried back to the kitchen to whip up an aioli sauce, blister the peppers, and initiate myself into The Club. (If you know, you know). Mentally designating an entire row of next year’s garden to shishito pepper plants, I attacked the next Doomed area: the fridge and freezer.
Enlisting the help of two kids eager to earn screen time, we accomplished in twenty minutes what had felt impossible all year. Bread bags full of end-loaf pieces were released from the fantasy that I would cut them up for french toast casserole, and instead were stacked in a large pile to lure the chickens into the market garden to be locked up with the grasshoppers. Thinking better of it, I saved half of the bread and prepared the french toast casserole on the spot, proving that fantasies do sometimes come true.
I paused after these first incredible victories to look around at the mess. I took great comfort from the knowledge that the grasshopper infestation was being mitigated and that breakfast was ready for the next day. Hope shone in my children’s eyes: Mom was back!
By the day’s end, the Big Table Homestead was saved. Three pages of written food storage inventory/meal plans sat on clean countertops, next to a huge box of kitchen items to donate. The chickens staggered around outside, full of grasshoppers and a year’s worth of freezer discards. A huge pot of chicken carcasses and veggie scraps was simmering gently down into broth on the stove.
But the real triumph had no visible evidence; it just sat quietly in my soul like the warm cottage dill bread I had actually baked (fresh dill is inspiring, and so is recently-expired cottage cheese).
I was motivated to homestead again. I popped a frozen pizza in the oven and sat down with the kids to watch gardening channels on YouTube.
