'Best Before End' Trumps...(or how housewives manage to avoid hitting the bottle before noon)

Thursday morning. Ds1 is throwing up. I settle him on the sofa with a king sized tub trug and resign myself to a day at home.

A day at home.

So what do I do? Oh the choices are endless. I could feed the washing machine monster. I could find a way of fitting all the kids clothes in their drawers. I could burn chocolate cookies. I could poke out the gunge-slime from the rubber seals in the dishwasher with a take-away chopstick. Or I could solve the problem of life the universe and everything.

Well even though the latter sounds mighty tempting it's not really compatible with emptying vomit out of a tub trug at regular intervals and so I decide, instead, on the task of clearing out the kitchen cupboards. Not just any kitchen cupboard, but Baking Cupboard Hell Hole, that desolate-thingimagig-stuffed-flour-mite-dog-hair-infested-no-mans-land.

Yes. I may be some time.

So here is an account in pictures of the contents of my baking cupboard on Thursday 29th July 2010.

Somehow it looks much tidier in a photo than it does in real life:
















But as I start to remove items, the reality shows:




















I reveal what no good vegetarian should have in their cupboard (close your eyes). I find two packs. But to be fair we used them to make 'snot' one halloween, not to eat.




















There are strange things lurking. A regular item in our diet (not). Maybe some strange healthy visitor snuck it in there when I wasn't looking. Or maybe the kids used it for dinosaur world or coke bottle rattles or amunition for assorted weapons...




















There are indicators of a guilty 'we ought to eat more healthy' moment. 3 different packs of pumpkin seeds, signifying 3 separate moments of food health guilt.
At least one, as you'll note by the use-by date, occurred before 2003:















Ahah! I'd forgotten that wonderful game. The 'best before' game of trumps.

And so I start with Dried Stoned Dates....





















...July 2006





















I trump that with Mixed Dried Fruit (looking more dried than fruit)...
























...Oct 2004





















Well that definitely beats Green's Velvety Cheesecake mix...


























which has an almost edible March 2010


















Quick intermission (doesn't everyone have tattoos in their baking cupboard?)

Then back to the game. I trump Velvety Cheesecake Mix with Ready To Serve Custard (complete with layer of authentic kitchen grease and dust), September 2009.

Which thrashes last year's Classic Christmas Pudding, still in date with a best before of September 2010:

But I'll top that with Flaked Pudding Rice...

with date of Jan 2003...

Which trumps Tescos Walnut Pieces...

that is sadly only April 2004:

But both are trumped by my positively retro selection of Gram Flour packs...

The first with the date of December 2001

And the second ...

...with the super bbe date of 7th August 2001! Yay! We have a winner!

The only problem is that at this point I get bored.

And somehow all this has to go back in that cupboard:

Never mind, maybe I'll just ignore it and go tackle the lifeforms in the fridge.

I am taking on the world, one cupboard at a time.