Growing up, I harassed my mom endlessly about having
expired food and medicine in her pantry and medicine cabinet. Of course, I
didn’t offer to help clean out either the pantry or the medicine cabinet,
something adult Christy would suggest to teenager Christy, by the way. Now that
I’m in charge of my own household, I’m more than willing to cut my mom some
slack. Because it seems every time I turn around I see something’s expired, and
not by just a few days.
Recently, when I was cleaning out my pantry, I ran across
a few expired items. Not horribly old; just a few months out of date. Not too
bad, I thought, considering cleaning the pantry only occurs once or twice a
decade. But on Monday afternoon, when I pulled out a bag of stuffing to make a
casserole, the expiration date was more than a few weeks past. It was 18 months
past, which means I must have bought it at least two years ago.
Rebecca, who was working in the kitchen at the time,
thought it was pretty funny. “You make fun of Nanny for having old stuff, but
you do the same thing!”
Ha ha ha.
Slowly but surely I am turning into my mother. I just
want to live old enough to see my kids turn into me.
Oh my goodness, you are preaching to the choir!! ;)
ReplyDeleteI tease my mom relentlessly about that too! And I'm sure I'll end up there sooner than later as well. I already have found some salad dressings a few months past date.
My in-laws are notorious for having expired foods in their fridge/on their shelves... Several years back we were over for dinner. My MIL makes a great salad-- chopped egg, cheese, cukes, lettuce, etc. My FIL reached for the ranch dressing, poured it on his and remarked how much he liked "this spicy ranch dressing." Robby and I were confused but our self-preservation was on high alert. This wasn't a special kind of ranch dressing. It was your run-of-the-mill buttermilk ranch. Robby discreetly checked the label. It had expired nearly a year before. We've since developed a code to alert the other to questionable foodstuffs. :)
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