Okay, I went with the Dune reference for the title, but I had to choose between that and several others:
On the rack
In a Pickle
Herbs and a-whey
A Change of Seasons
Spicemaggedon
And several others. I'm sure you'll have other ideas.
What finally made me settle on the title above is that I realized that the guy whose famous series was about a substance that made faster-than-light travel possible, a substance called Spice, was named Frank HERBert. So there.
Sorry, I'm crazed from lack of sleep.
We have a moving truck booked, and if you've ever hired house movers, you know they won't take food. Especially stuff in open containers. Why should they? Who wants to deal with that?
If we were moving locally I could bring all the open herb and spice jars and condiment bottles to the new place in the car, but we are moving hundreds of miles away, and between humans and large dog there isn't going to be a whole lot of room. Plus, while we can get to the area in less than 12 hours, the movers may take three to seven days. Even with all our crap, we can't fill up the truck ourselves. So we need suitcases and a hotel room.
So no, no room for spices. Ironically, the thing that makes travel to the stars possible in Dune cannot travel at all here.
And no one wants your old, open spice and pickle jars. I had a small handful that had not yet been opened, which I will donate with canned soup and the like. But the rest? Down the toilet, down the drain, or just into the trash.
I just finished the job and I have an incredible mound of plastic and glass for recycling day on Wednesday. I also have a garbage can that smells like an amazing antipasto.
Now the goal is not to cook anything between now and next week that will be bland because I had to do the purge. Needs coriander? Sorry, that's down the sink. A bit of rosemary? Headed for the landfill. Onion powder? Pardon the oniony scent in the loo. Hundreds of dollars' worth of flavors, gone.
Can't be helped, I guess. I've already had to part with so much -- sentimental items, books a-plenty, money like there's no tomorrow -- so what's a recently opened jar of dried bay leaves compared to that?
On the bright side, some of those seasonings looked a little too seasoned. I think my bottle of dried savory had a Durkee label from two or three iterations ago. Never had a lot of call for savory .. . .
