Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Today, I had a glimpse of my own mortality: I will not live long enough to use all the coriander I own. Off the top of my head, I can think of two recipes I have which involve coriander, both no more than a quarter of a teaspoon. Because, you know, you wouldn’t want to give coriander its head or anything; it would just take over. So every year or so, I go through up to a teaspoon. At some point very long ago when I bought the coriander, I decided I would make these recipes all the time and I bought the jumbo bottle of coriander. Or that was the only size they had. Or someone had overestimated their own need for coriander and I inherited it; the coriander’s appearance is lost to the mists of time. What I do know is that I have coriander and plenty of it.

Except, of course, one day within the last year when I needed coriander and I couldn’t find it and so I went and bought yet another fifty-five gallon drum of the stuff, from which I removed a quarter of a teaspoon. Two days later, the original tub o’coriander showed up, possibly having been used as an improvisational end-table in the living room. Today, I asked a friend who actually cooks if she had coriander. She said, “I have this huge container for this one recipe I use. Why,” she added eagerly, “do you want some?”

I also have the same eight bay leaves I’ve had for a decade because I don’t make beef stew. I wish to have them woven into my hair upon my death, so that I can take them into the next world with me, where I will also not make beef stew.

This whole spice cabinet is like a graveyard of my hopes and dreams. Two years ago I made spice cookies at Christmas. I have this delicious recipe which is deeply spicy and heavily based on molasses. You roll the dough out thinly, which is insanely aggravating with a cookie heavily based on molasses. Ideally they are so thin that they bake in about eighty-one seconds and burn in eighty-seven seconds. The entire afternoon is spent hovering obessively over the oven waiting to see when they turn just the right shade of light brown and shouting at any living thing which walks into the kitchen and distracts you from color-monitoring. The making of these cookies is so emotional and exhausting that it takes me up to five years to forget and try them again. But, lucky me, I still have the cloves in two forms, the ginger, the allspice, the cardamom (Oh, so very much cardamom) and the nutmeg.

And look, it’s the cream of tartar! And another! And another still! I know I haven’t bought cream of tartar ever and yet there are three of them. I gave one to a friend and within a week I was back up to three again. I’ve stopped trying to give them away, because if they can breed and they don’t want to be moved, they could rise up against me and conspire to create some aggressive meringue which could smother me in my bed. Between the three of them, they could generate an army of angel-food cakes bent on mayhem. Best to just let them lie there.

Trader Joe’s 21-Seasoning Salute which, I took care to note, only has twenty seasonings in it, all of them spices we already have. However, in the interest of fairness, it should be noted that the 21-Seasoning Salute also looks like cheap potpourri, so I guess the twenty-first seasoning is visual.

AUGH! Chili powder! So…much…chili…powder. Ability…to…question…reason…fading…as…multiple….bottles…cloud…vision.

Really, four containers of chili powder? That seems excessive, even in a family living in the Southwest. And none are used enough so that I could blend them and create room. They just sit there, mocking me in their gritty and slightly bitter way.

The juniper berries are just aggravating. I remember I had a great recipe for something that involved juniper berries, but no longer remember what the recipe was. I do, however, remember that they were expensive. So in the meanwhile, I might entertain myself by making everything bland that I eat taste like gin.

The spices were all expensive, and aging in my cabinet doesn’t exactly improve their flavor. By the time I gather the strength to use them again, flavorwise they will be lightly-tinted eraser leavings. So beginning tonight, our meals might be as poorly planned as ever but by gum, they’ll be seasoned. Macaroni and cheese with fennel and coriander. Tofu steaks with a cream of tartar and juniper berry reduction. Salmon baked in a sleeve of cinnamon and onion powder. And dessert? Well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise for the family, but I do have those five tubes of toothpaste I’m supposed to be using on the dog…