I recently watched a home design video professing the importance of a pantry to a well-run household and thus familial bliss. I’m pretty certain Jacob-the-Bottomless-Pit would agree.
At the Park house we put a pantry cupboard in our laundry room when we renovated the kitchen. We don’t have any pantry memories from that house as Jake was still on a liquid diet. On Shasta we had one particular cupboard behind Nate’s high chair next to the dining room. Basically there was a lot of milling around this cupboard, pointing and attempting to reach the out-of-reach latch that was probably only 3 feet high. The boys were always picketing and protesting in front of this cupboard. It’s where we kept the cookies.
Then we moved to the mountain house and the boys quickly mastered the power of moving chairs. I put the major contraband as high as I could, but this strategy had a short lifespan. We’d reached the point where you hope all the nutritional training on health and savoring would start to pay off. At some point I’m hoping they go off to college and aren’t those kids only eating mountains of buttered noodles and cookies.
Now we’ve moved into the barn and it’s the closest thing we’ve ever had to a real pantry. A wall of shelves with mostly food at eye level. The challenge is that if there is any Bundaberg ginger beer, Jacob just can’t resist it. It’s constantly evaporating, evidenced only by the recycling bin. We’re talking about this over dinner and I’m like, “I can’t buy ice cream and Bundaberg every week because no one can resist it. My options are to not buy it. Lock it up. Or hide it. I have no other options.”
“Or you can just buy more,” counters Jacob.
I honestly had not considered that. Sometimes I miss the power of a 3-foot cupboard latch.