My Jars (for Jen)

I've owed this post to my friend Jen for a while. She's one of the few people I know who's as much of an organizational geek as I am. I couldn't believe it the first time I saw her kitchen cabinets. Every cabinet, heck, even the fridge, was sorted into zones by use and labeled. It was amazing. It was something I would do. But shamefully, hadn't.

Was it kitchen-cabinet envy that sent me on my quest for the perfect storage jars? No, I don't think it was. As I said, it was something I'd do anyway, left to my own devices (anyone who's seen my linen and medicine cabinets can attest to that). But perhaps the idea that someone else would appreciate my efforts helped motivate me. Actually, the real impetus was that I started buying more whole foods in bulk (see the Momnivore for more on our family's lifestyle changes). Unfortunately, those stupid, flimsy little bags you use at the bulk bins turn into squishy little green bean bags in the pantry, hard to store and even harder to see or remember what was in them. I'm not a big fan of wasting food, so I went in search of a new storage solution.

I wanted something clear that had an airtight seal. There are dozens of types of plastic containers available, and for a while I was seriously considering OXO's Pop containers, which are not only super-cute, but they use them for the entire professional pantry on Iron Chef America, which is pretty impressive (even if I assume that OXO generously donated all those containers to ICA). Ultimately, there were two reasons I didn't go with the Pop containers. First, they aren't inexpensive. They're reasonably priced and I'm not saying they aren't worth their cost, but I couldn't afford to do a whole pantry one $10+ container at a time. More importantly, though, they're plastic. It seems like every season we discover a new chemical leaking out of our plastics, so who knows if 3 years after I buy hundreds of dollars of these containers, currently deemed food-safe, we'll learn that they aren't safe for food at all? No, I knew I wanted good, old fashioned glass. You know, glass. Really hot sand. I'm comfortable with that.

This is where it got complicated. I knew exactly what I wanted: hermetically sealed jars. Think of a Mason canning jar, but with a rubber gasket and that wire & bail that holds the lid on tight. I know it's something completely foreign to most people, but I grew up in Northern New England and seriously, ancient stuff that works never goes out of style there. Apparently, however, it does everywhere else - except Europe! It took hours of online searches to wade through the over-priced, tiny, decorative (read: useless) little jars and find proper food jars, but finally I found just what I wanted at GlassWarehouse.org: 2-quart, square glass food storage jars with hermetically sealing lids by Italian glass maker Fido. I love the Internet, but I have to confess this search was a long one with a lot of wrong turns, so I ordered 6 cases. The worst part was the shipping cost (ok, and the fact that they arrived in two 50-lb boxes - lucky my DH was home), but the jars themselves were less than $ 4.50 each since I bought enough to break the wholesale minimum. I've opted not to label them since I can see the contents and going label-free allows me to change their contents whenever I want. One unexpected perk is that recently we had an informal party and I was able to grab several of the jars with snacks in them and simply put them out on the buffet, since they're so simple and pretty.

It took about six months of searching and researching, but these jars are exactly what I wanted, and I love them! Here are my honest, unretouched before (l) and after (r) pantry pictures. Of course, I also use my new jars to keep baking yeast fresh in the fridge, and to keep the dog's treats crunchy, and to... well, you get the idea.

Ta-Da!