Garbage

Whilst my roomie is in SF, I've decided to avail myself of the opportunity to do a bit of a kitchen audit in preparation for starting to cook again (I did not get off to a good start after my previous post to this effect- I burnt my finger on a frying pan and it blistered). There were six boxes of spaghetti! Three bottles of soy sauce! Water chestnuts from 2002! Anyway, I got two cupboards done, filled four garbage bags and reflected on the inadequacies of garbage disposal in this country.

Garbage here is collected twice a week- Monday and Thursday mornings. This sounds quite reasonable, until you realise the tiny size of the garbage bin (about 1/5 of the volume of the wheelies back home I'd guess). What this means is that you then have to pile all your crap up on the sidewalk next to the bin. Which, if the garbos are on strike, can create quite a pile. So not only is it unsightly and smelly (and New York is even worse with all that high density living and not much sidewalk) it cannot be hygienic for a city. It's quite shocking to have to sidestep mounds of house refuse in a first world country in your daily walk to work.

At any rate, I'll do the other cupboard and the fridge/freezer after tomorrow morning's trash collection so I'm not responsible for some sort of minor traffic hazard.

I also threw out all these tins of Crisco. I'm not sure what that is, but it looks evil. Also, I discovered by accident on Friday that they don't have Copha in this country and don't even know what it is. Neither do I, for that matter, except you need it for Crackles and White Christmas (which they also don't know of!).