Saturday, December 1, 2012
Breakfast at home: a very small bowl of oatmeal with diced apple and soy milk, cappuccino drink form a powdered mix that my mom gave me. House chores and organizing: laundry, removed labels from jars, began converting loose sheets of printed recipes to digital. Apple updates, including installing iTunes 11. Brunch at home with Patrick: hash brown and veggie patty on garlic asiago dinner roll with smoked cheddar. More house chores and organizing. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Golden Gate Indian Cuisine: fish and vegetarian dishes. Watched two-thirds of Harold and Maude (1971) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Investigated spice storage solutions. I was disappointed with all of the solutions sold as completed sets, typically with spices included. We have no counter or wall space to store spices, so spinning racks and wall racks were dismissed. We do have fridge wall space, though, and I liked the magnetic, windowed containers that stuck to metal, but (1) I could find only one size, which was larger than I wanted for my smallest size of container, (2) they didn't seem to be as airtight as a screw-on lid, (3) I'd constantly be worried about them accidentally falling, and (4) it's better to protect spices from light. Eventually I had found exactly what I wanted—SpiceCare by TableFare—but was then disappointed to learn that they had stopped making it in August 2012, and it was no longer available anywhere—direct, from vendors, or on eBay. I continued hunting. After much more research, I decided on and made a purchase of 2-ounce plastic bottles and 4-ounce plastic jars from SKS Bottle & Packaging (New York). I chose plastic containers because I've accidentally dropped a glass spice bottle in the past. That was tedious to resolve, and the cryworthy loss was a nearly full bottle of very good organic cinnamon. For these bottles and jars I chose a plastic that was clear, rather than opaque, because I wanted to be able to see the spices inside. This plastic is PET, so it's safe for food. Although I like sift-and-spoon hinged lids, snap lids were unacceptable to me for two reasons: (1) proper spice storage requires an airtight container and snap lids are not always airtight, and (2) a snap lid might pop open or come off if the container is dropped, so I chose a solution with screw-on lids. I chose aluminum instead of plastic lids because I've experienced that plastic lids sometimes crack or break over time or if accidentally screwed on too tightly or if dropped. I chose two sizes because we have a lot of spices in varying quantities. I chose square instead of round containers because these are going in a drawer and I don't want them rolling around causing labels to disappear from view. If I later decide I want more sizes, I have a lot of other size choices that will match my purchases from today. Some things I had wanted but are missing from the solution I chose: inner sifter lids (aka fitments), built-in levelers, nestability for empty containers. SpiceCare would have been perfect and I think would have met all my requirements except nestability. In any case, I'm glad to have finally gotten around to this task. It's been on my to do list for years. I'm going to have fun when the containers arrive.