Cupboard Love

This is the content of cupboard number 1, mainly bakeware. And as I had quite correctly anticipated (see 'I'm swimming...'), virtually everything was out of date, including my plain flour!! I filled a whole box (one of those collapsible ones) with items to throw away. In fact, my cupboard number 1 would be virtually empty now had I not selected another box full of food to regain their place in said cupboard under the persuasive premise: "I reckon 'Best before...' simply means the item isn't quite as potent as it could be...".
It was quite an experience, at once nostalgic-melancholic and cathartic.
There were two distinct 'areas' of neglected foods:
a) items for elaborate cake creations: icing (rock hard), small containers with decorations (colour faded and tasteless), food colouring, glycerine, liquid glucose (without exception out of date).
I haven't made any spectacular cakes since..., since..., well, not since Ozzy was quite little. All his recent birthday cakes were bought ones (M&S to the rescue...). When before, there would have been Thomas, and Gordon in the ditch (surrealistically incorporating Batman...), and even Henry in the tunnel (with moveable brick wall)!
Though my favourite ones were for adult birthdays (Big Zeros): a huge crab for a Cancerian friend, and for my darling husband the idyllic riverside scene, with a Burberry clad (or so I fancy), flatcapped man fishing from a bridge. I even took photographs... alas, this was before digi cams...

b) items purchased in Germany without which I can't live (or so I seem to believe every time I visit), the vast majority of which appear to have been produced by Dr. Oetker. Only - just how many packs of vanilla sugar does one need?!! Clearly none, as I've got packs going back to the year 2000!

But if you think that's out of date - think again! Apart from my pièce de la résistance, which is so old it dates back to the Dark Ages when food did not even carry bb or eb dates, there were two packs of sheet gelatine from 1994!!!

Needless to say, I didn't find much in cupboard number 1 that I can send to a fellow food blogger without running the risk of being prosecuted for indirect manslaughter by means of mailing without due care and attention!!
Not to worry - I've got two more -- equally large and equally overcrowded -- cupboards to go through, surely not every area of my culinary life can be quite so finito?!!.

At any rate -- this is a good exercise... Without EBBP 2, I would not have sorted through my cupboards at this point in time (I REALLY have far more important, pressing things to do...). And although it has all the painful elements of the "7 up" series which has just been on tv again (and yes, come to think of it, I'm currently approaching one of those 7-year-boundaries...), it also makes me feel as if I'm finally making some progress towards a new kitchen, a new cooker (!!!), and a completely new phase in my life! (Though Frank's 'Let's get a new cooker before Christmas!' seems preposterously optimistic considering this family's habitual time-frame!)

So, Andrew, can we have a 'freezer raid' next? Followed maybe by 'Hidden treasure in your garage' and 'What's lurking in your cellar?'

Yours sincerely,
Ms Frazzled-Disorganized
"The Shambles"
Big City
UK

PS: I have a photograph of my pièce de la résistance, but it wouldn't upload (though the programme said it had done it...), so you'll just have to guess what it was and how old it is .... A little clue: the price tag reads 3 1/2 pence!!!