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There’s a big box of cocoa flavoured corn flakes taking up a stupid amount of space in my tiny pantry area. Next to it is a box of cream filled biscuits. Below is another 5 kg bag of rice. My fridge is full of apples. There’s a shelf crowded with miscellaneous jars of odd ingredients. Mysterious plastic-wrapped “things” appear spontaneously in my freezer.

I didn’t buy these things. And the problem is - apart from the rice and apples which we’ll eventually get through - most will go past their due date and have to be thrown away. As it has been for the past 7 years as my mother in law attempts to stock my kitchen.

While my kitchen and fridge may give the illusion of being constantly empty it’s because I prefer to go to the store more often and buy small amounts of food with a plan, than do a huge stock up at once. This is especially true of fruits and vegetables which tend to have weird fridge life spans. This is the way I have lived since I moved out of home. This system has always worked for me. I rarely waste food this way. Added bonus is it makes things a lot easier when you don’t drive. I’ve always lived in very urban areas so it’s never been a hassle to just pop down to the store.

However my mother in law keeps bringing random often junky items in to my kitchen - either directly on her few rare visits but most often via Yoshi when he goes over there. I have asked him to speak to her about it many times - how we appreciate the gesture very much, but we often don’t eat what she gives us. But it’s all fallen on deaf ears unfortunately.

I make Yoshi eat all of the chips, lollies and biscuits. I’ve talked to her directly about eating healthy and how it affects mental health and how I’ve been trying to encourage Yoshi to eat fruit rather than say a box of biscuits. He’s as thin as a rail now - but the amount of junk he consumes is crazy. I’m lucky I have enough willpower to just ignore everything. I only buy Yoshi snacks to have now and then and usually it’s baked senbei or nuts. If he wants chips then he has to go get a pack from the store. Otherwise I try not to have anything around because I am home during working hours as well and don’t want snacks around. It’s easier to exercise willpower when there is nothing around.

Volume has been another issue. This is the first winter in which we haven’t had to eat an entire box of mikan before they go bad. I’m kind of grateful. Now I can buy a few and really enjoy them. Every summer a couple of boxes of somen arrive. We do our best - but we would need to eat it everyday to get through it. Which we always fail to do before the due date. Lately her friend who has a small farm has been given her vegetables. This is awesome - except garbage bags full of them come at once. In winter we can at least keep them outside for a bit - but no way can we fit so much in the fridge. Sometimes I think my mother in law gives it to us so she doesn’t have to deal with all the storage and cleaning herself.

I try to give things away to other people if possible, but usually things just go bad. We get sick of them. Nobody wants to eat the same thing every day. But how else can 2 people eat through 50 packs of somen in a couple of months?

The miscellaneous ingredients - I can’t really fathom these. And I do a lot of cooking. Even Japanese cooking. My oden broth is to die for. But these - I think most of them really just go on top of rice. So I put them in the “Yoshi Can Eat This” category as I usually don’t tuck into just a bowl of rice. And he does. I just keep an eye on the expiry dates, and chuck them when they go.

The mysterious plastic-wrapped freezer packages are even more obscure. I’m unable to identify most of them. Some might be croquettes of some description. They just appear. I also put them in the “Yoshi Can Eat This” category. Apart from her New Years ozoni, my mother in law’s cooking is not really in tune with what I like to eat. I think years of pandering to Masaki’s unadventuress palate has squished any joy out of preparing food, it’s merely functional fuel now. She defaults to Japanese curry, white stew and reheating fried food. A side salad is usually some iceberg lettuce, tomato, and sometimes broccoli. She made a daikon and chicken dish the other day and worried it was too “Japanese” for me. Yes me who makes her own oden and sushi. I try to avoid going there for dinner because all of the processed food strikes me as too salty. Yet bland. Also there is a culture of trying to force feed us more, which is really irritating after the first 20 times.

I guess also I’m pretty touchy about it because I’ve been allowed to cook for the family once. Yes just once in over 7 years. No matter how often I offer. That one time I did cook everyone liked it. Even Masaki had seconds - so I know it wasn’t just politeness. I have seen them eat different things when we’ve been out at restaurants. But even on Sunday when she came over she brought a container of Japanese curry she’d made and packs of prepared rice. Once again I had to put what I’d made into the freezer for another day.

It’s not meant to be, but it feels insulting. Like it’s too risky to eat food I prepare so we’d better be safe and go down the road to a dreadful family restaurant. Or order in pizza.

Now that EM is eating solids though there’s been an increase in bags and boxes. 7 different types of baby senbei. Several tubs of baby yogurt. Packs and packs of baby powdered corn soup. Bottles of different types of baby water. And of course many, many apples. And I guess it’s just going to increase.

I accept everything graciously and say thanks. But I have to step into my tiny kitchen now to make the first of many coffees of the day and move several things around to accomplish that simple task. And feel overwhelmed by having to just deal with it all. And guilty when any of it has to be thrown away.

• I could just blithely say “It’s an Asian mother thing.”, but I understand where you’re coming from. I still have dried goods in my cupboards from a visit my mother paid us in 2006; it’s expired and I don’t even care anymore. OTOH, I have decades of “I don’t care anymore” training.

  I can only offer this salve re the cooking: perhaps it’s not that she doesn’t trust your cooking etc., but is reluctant to put you to any “trouble” to cook for her. It sounds trite but is really often true with “Asian mothers”... Hence the stereotype…

  dawn
  09/02/09 11:36 PM

• I have heaps of packet stuff that my mum has delivered over the years - maggi meal bases mainly.  The Ashman won’t use them so I try to use them when I occasionally cook but they are out of date.  Getting through them slowly.  But I can’t bear to throw them away. 

  OMG I am turning into my mother!! But that is inevitable I guess - fortunately my mother is a good egg so it is not a big concern.

  The Goddess
  Location: Home
  09/02/17 06:57 AM

• I clicked on the link and like your cooking! Keep writing!

  Just an idea—-for all the items that you won’t use/need or want to give away, how about doing an exchange? I’ve just cleared up some space in my own kitchen…

  BCP
  Location: Tokyo
  09/05/04 02:34 AM

• Oooo pantry exchange! Not a bad idea.

  MJD-S
  Location: cleaning out kitchen
  09/05/07 07:44 PM

• *raises her hand for some leftover stuff*

  Alnedra
  Location: Singapore
  09/05/07 09:41 PM

• Let me know! My pantry’s got the space now

  BCP
  09/05/07 10:26 PM