Remember way back when? Back when I posted pictures of the insides of my kitchen cupboards? I thought that post was fun.
Yesterday, Chicagomama had a great post about her aspirational kitchen. She describes the aspirational kitchen as “the random jars, packets, tubes and boxes of food product that you thought you would use – when you would be living the life you imagine yourself having.” When I read her post, wondered what all the unused ingredients in my cupboards said about the life I wish I was living.
Let’s take a look. Here are the contents of my baking/spice cupboard that don’t have a snowflakes chance in hell of ever being used. (Description below the photo)
In the above photo, you will notice the following:
- Three boxes of mango pudding (I like it, but rarely cook it)
- Two boxes of pho bullion
- Palm sugar (It appars to be half empty, but for the life of me, i don’t know what i used it for.)
- Tapioca Flour
- Two bags of mung beans
- BanXeo mix
- Garam Masala Spice mix
- Prik Khing Curry paste
- Yellow curry paste
- Sesame seeds
- Dessicated Coconut (?)
From my canned goods cupboard:
- Mole
- Borcht
- golden mushrooms
- turnip greens
- canned mangosteens
- seasoned soy beans (maybe from my FIL??)
- tandori paste
- fancy mustard
- pickles
- hearts of palm (? I don’t eve know what that is!)
- Pork & Beans (from my bird flu panic phase)
- BBQ sauce
- Baby prunes & can of prune juice.. (because you just never know when you might need them)
Dry goods:
- Gigantic package of nasty soy breakfast mix
- garlic chutney
- black bean sauce
- dried bananas from probably 2003
- Tom Ka Gai soup concentrate
- more pho bullion
- oyster sauce (blech)
- giant bag of black rice (to make black rice pudding)
- sticky rice
- five kinds of dried beans (we usually only eat canned beans)
Noodle cupboard:
- Instant polenta that tastes like plastic
- Seven, count them SEVEN packages of rice noodles
Conclusion:
So what does my aspirational kitchen say about me? Obviously I wish I were a great cook of exotic Asian foods. I am not. I can cook probably 5-7 good dishes and the rest of this stuff is just filling my cupboard space.
After photographing these items, I bagged most of them up for the food pantry. Maybe someone else will actually use them. I have also resolved to not wander around the Asian grocery without a list and a plan to use a specific recipe.
I volunteer sometimes at a food pantry. I can picture the look on the face of the person when they pull that stuff out of their grocery sack.
Your post really hit home – it made me laugh out loud! About a month ago I decided that I needed to clean out my “aspirational pantry”, and because I am a poor grad student I decided to eat it all. I didn’t buy groceries (except milk) for two weeks, and if you could overdose on carbs, I’d be dead right now. Three kinds of rice, two full boxes of pancake mix, a cake mix, 2 pounds of pasta, garbanzo beans… I still have a few skeletons in the pantry, like a box of beignet mix and a box of scalloped potato mix, but in the interest of not becoming pre-diabetic, I think I’m going to back off the carbs for awhile.
Anyway, I’m sure the food pantry people will appreciate your stash!
MOLE!!!? Damn you ‘Murricans eat weird stuff.
Err, your last comment about not going to an Asian grocery without a plan is probably how you ended up with said items in the first place!
Yeah, a lot of stuff is worthless without the other stuff (which is also worthless by itself).
I have the same kind of golden mushrooms and package of soy breakfast cr*p in my closet. The difference is that I completely ignore all the Chinese stuff that my in-laws bring over – either they cook it up, my husband adds it to soup or rice porridge, or I search for an expiration date and toss it.
You have a NOODLE CUPBOARD? Cool. And yeah, you’ve discovered my own guilty secret when I start overflowing with this kind of weird, random stuff: I save it for when the kids’ schools start collecting food for the Food Bank. It really does seem kind of mean.
You have really cool stuff in your cupboards!!!! Seriously. Even if you nevre use it…it looks cool to open the cupboard doors!
Hey, I NEED some mung beans! For some pumpkin erisheri I am going to be making. Thanks for reminding me!
Wow, you are ALMOST inspiring me to clean out my pantry……
My aspirational kitchen photos would look much like this, save for the Borscht. Borscht…Shudder.
Gretchen
Wow, your aspirational cupboard looks a lot like mine — except I have a few more random Indian items. And some funky spices that I don’t know what they do. And about 4 different kinds of Miso. I actually love to cook, and do sometimes use these things — and I unfortunately love to go to Asian markets and buy stuff that just looks interesting.
I suppose I should clean up — but what if I need them some day???? 
P.S. Ummm…yeah…I am a major packrat.
At least you guys got the good kind of HsingChu rice noodles. I’m impressed. You can get all that in Ohio?
Ahhh, yes. At one point when we still had money, I ventured into a Latino grocery store and bought everything the store keeper said came from Colombia. We now have a case of Colombia guava paste and I’ve no idea how to use it.
In my mind, I’m a great Colombian chef.
I collect bottles of rose and orange flower water. In my mind, I bake Arabic pastries every weekend. In reality these bottles have followed me to two different apartments and now a house.
Like you, I also have a large quantity of black rice. For black rice pudding. The kind I make about once a year.
how much do I love that you have both Kosher borsht AND porc in a can, in the same cupboard!
Oh man, can I be your food pantry? I’d kill for some of those items! We have an Asian supermarket but it isn’t handicap accesible and I can’t shop there, much to my chagrin.
I can’t even imagine what your food pantry is going to do with that food. They probably don’t have a clue!
What do you like to cook? Because, if you hadn’t sent them to the food pantry, I’d suggest a swap. There’s nary an Asian in my family anywhere, but I was raised on Chinese buffet food and those are a lot of foods I use to cook at home now.
The U.S. is such a weird place…