Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Whiteboard

On the wall outside my soul food kitchen in Tel Aviv is a whiteboard divided into 3 columns: Watch, Buy, and Prepare. The categories are probably self-explanatory. Less obvious: I dream of days when my entire white board goes blank.

Of course, that would likely mean no business would be coming in, not exactly an idyllic state. But it’s funny how the mind works, since I really don’t carry this thinking through to its logical conclusion. No. I’m more myopically focused on whittling away at that list as efficiently and as expeditiously as I can. Of course, if you are cooking a la minute, the shopping for fresh foods is a daily thing. So that’s never going to disappear. More surprising to me are the staples like flour and sugar and eggs and oil and sea salt, etc. No matter how much I stock up on these basic commodities in advance, I always seem to be shopping for more. In a fit of pique, I once cycled down to one of my suppliers and bought 30 liters of sunflower oil at one shot, figuring I was laying in for a long season. Hah. I’m delusional. It went in no time.

Which leads me to something obvious but no less surprising or interesting to me anyway, namely: I go through shit on a regular basis that I never used up in a lifetime of cooking just for our family. Salt? Sugar? Oil? My mom — okay this is not the best example since she was a bit of apack rat to say the least and never threw away anything — could exceed the expiration date on items that had no expiration date, if you know what I mean. Our 1 pound container of Morton salt, for instance had to have outlasted several package design changes that the company undertook over the decades. We never finished up a box of salt. Never.

And here I am going through Salt and the life as if there were no tomorrow. Which there always is. With yet another shopping list.