Cleaning for Passover

Cleaning for Passover makes me feel like I am stripping down to the essentials.

I go through my cabinets and find that in the last year I have acquired not one but three cans of cannellini beans, and have eaten no cannellini beans during that time. Off to the food bank, where someone who can’t afford to buy cannellini beans will hopefully appreciate them. The refrigerator is the hardest part. I see my year in review reflected in stubborn little ridges of spilled ketchup and a particularly moldy avocado that had been bought and forgotten. When I am finished with the refrigerator two hours later, it is clean, sparkling and fresh. It contains four apples, a container of milk, a carton of eggs and some kosher for Passover sliced cheese. Gone is my illusion that I can eat whatever I feel like. For the next week, I will make meals out of what there is.