Welcome to Week 8! We’re staying in the kitchen for one more week and stepping into one of the most deceptively tricky spaces in the house – the kitchen pantry and fridge.
At first glance, it’s just food storage. But for many of us, these spaces hold a whole lot more: good intentions, half-finished projects, and a few mysterious jars posing as petri dishes.
Sometimes we get tired of the dinner rut and decide it’s time to shake things up. So we dive into a new recipe, buy all the ingredients (and maybe a shiny new gadget or two), and pretend we’re a person who can create a 17 ingredient meal on a random Tuesday night.
And maybe we are. But then life happens.
We don’t want to be wasteful, so we save the leftovers and shove them in the fridge, pushing the other leftovers we meant to eat to the back of the fridge. The specialty mustard gets tucked behind the ketchup, and suddenly our gourmet meal supplies get repurposed into pieces for a game of fridge Tetris.
When our fridge or pantry gets too full, it has the opposite effect of what we were going for. The chaos makes it harder to see what we actually have, it’s way harder to get inspired, and so much easier to just order pizza.
So this week, we’re creating space. Not just for food, but for calm, clarity, and those small sparks of inspiration that come from being able to see what’s in front of us and have available the tools and ingredients that line up with our capacity in this season.
Here’s this week’s assignments:
101: Toss the expired food.
Start simple. Each time you open the fridge or pantry, check for something you can remove. Let go of anything past its prime (or long past). No guilt, just observations: Are there items you used to buy in bulk that nobody is eating much of anymore?
201: Do a mini pantry or fridge reset.
You know the drill, we are NOT emptying the entire contents of our kitchen onto the dining room table! Set a timer and group things you reach for most often where you can see them and grab them easily. Don’t overthink it. We’re not going for an Instagram photo shoot, it’s a “let’s make it less of a scavenger hunt” goal. And less of a “I bought flour today cause I thought I was running low on flour, but when I went to put it away I realized I had 3 bags of flour already” thing. (Just me?)
As you group your items together, be realistic about what you can and like to use. Out with the “maybe I’ll use it someday” items, in with the space to see what you have.
Extra Credit Reflection: Enough for This Season
Just because you are an amazing baker, doesn’t mean you need a whole shelf of specialty flours, powdered meringue and every piping tip ever made right now. Maybe this isn’t your Baking Wars season. Maybe it’s your “three go-to dinners that don’t make me cry at 6 p.m.” season – and that’s fabulous.
Reflect for a few minutes on what kind of nourishment and rhythm your current life can hold:
- What do we actually cook or eat in a typical week?
- What ingredients or gadgets am I holding onto for a previous or someday version of me?
- What would “enough” look like for this season?
Decluttering your pantry or fridge isn’t about waste – it’s about making room for what feeds you now.
You don’t have to be the person who bakes, preps, or cans to be a person who’s caring well for yourself and your people.
In fact, clearing out often helps us be MORE creative and MORE budget friendly!
Let your kitchen reflect your real, current life, not your aspirational one. Creativity and nourishment grow best when there’s room to breathe (and when you can actually find the mustard).
Uncovering Real 