We had the kitchen painted recently and I was in the process of putting things back in order when I suddenly suffered a devastating attack of revelation, truth and logic.

Why in the devil was I restoring a gigantic urn of flour to the spot on the counter where it had sat sullen and unused for the last generation?

Right next to the jug holding its even more useless cousin—a hulking sticky brick called brown sugar—and the normal line-up of suspects like rice from the Ming Dynasty, pasta long past it and some frightening yellowy grain. Continue reading →