Beginning Again

     January affords us all with an opportunity to start all over again, an adult "do-over" as it were.  We can shed all our bad habits and fore swear our foolish ways and start the new year with a fresh set of good intentions.  The same can be said for our kitchens.  January is a great time to clean house by doing some basic things.  I began by going through the 'frig and getting rid of all the old moldy leftovers (science projects as we refer to them around our house).  Also gone are all the festive and high calorie snacks that accumulated over the holidays, lest temptation have it's way.
     It's also a good time to give the spice cabinet the once over and discard the spices and seasonings that are way out of date: you know, the red and white metal tins of stuff that we've had for a decade or two of the spices that we somehow never use, like pickling spices or shrimp boil.  That way there is more space, then, for fresh new seasonings that can be purchased from my favorite store, Penzey's, in Chestnut Hill.
     Another good January detail is to activate the self cleaning feature on the oven.  I dug out the owner's manual and re-familiarized myself with the process and discovered that the time sequence can be manually controlled thus abbreviating the event from the standard four and a half hours down to three.  I mean, how much dirt can there be in there?  But I also read of the potential danger resulting from the fumes that emanate from the unit.  They say it can be harmful to pets, especially birds.  Say, isn't that why they took canaries down into the mines?  So it is wise to attempt this cleaning on a mild day when windows and doors can be open a bit to ventilate the house.
     One final thing on my list was to get all the knives in the kitchen sharpened.  Who knows when they last had an edge on them?  I was always taught that a dull knife was more dangerous than a sharp one, so in that case my kitchen was ground zero for a disaster in the making.  I spent an interesting morning getting my knives back in working condition.  But that's a story for another day.
     My kitchen is now ready to welcome all the culinary adventures that 2012 can provide!