Day 17: Baby formula

Because I had nothing better to do today, like maybe perform a little self-surgery with no anesthetic, I decided to re-organize our pantry.

Most people have pantries in their kitchen. Ours is down one floor, in a long skinny closet under the stairs. Because it's completely full and also because I am always holding/wearing the baby, I have not been able to plumb the depths of our stored foods. I simply can't go inside or reach past the front of the pantry with one arm full of grabby infant. As a result things in the back have been somewhat neglected since Cole's birth a year ago while the front, reachable shelves become more and more crammed with regularly consumed staples that rotate in and out frequently.

So today I found all sorts of interesting things: three jars of capers. Six boxes of Scottish shortbread cookies (not that that's a problem, that one). A can of callaloo. Unfortunately they're all expired, albeit recently. Some stuff I'll just try to use quickly (a box of shortbread in each room of the house! how convenient!), but some of it we just don't want. Multiple boxes of soy milk, a jar of soy butter, a box of quinoa I always thought I'd one day get around to trying. I can't offer them on Freecycle due to restrictions on offering expired foods, and the food pantry where my mother volunteers won't take them either. I have huge difficulties throwing away food, but we're not going to eat some of this stuff, ever. Not that it's gone bad, it's just that we no longer do soy, for example. So what to do?

I hate to say it, but unless I can think of some creative response like a drive-by donation to one of those carboard sign guys in the stop light median strips (Hey, fella, here's some soy milk! Drink up!) then it might mean a trip to The Great Round Graveyard for at least a few of the more elderly and esoteric refugees from the pantry that time forgot.

All of which leads to today's donation: several cans of baby formula that just kept arriving as unasked-for free samples (Jeez, you accept one little free diaper bag...) These are NOT expired, by the way, our lactivist household simply does not use formula. They're now destined for Carroll County Food Sunday. (Hey, babies, drink up!)