Mark Bittman – he of the no-knead bread phenomenon – gives advice on cleaning out your pantry for New Year’s. I did something similar last week, much to the Snook’s chagrin. I threw out probably an entire grocery bag full of expired stuff: spices, pasta, bread-making supplies, semi-dried fruit, etc. Some of this stuff was YEARS out-of-date! He argued that most of it was still perfectly good to use, in the sense that it wouldn’t kill us. My response was that whatever potency and flavor they had originally was long gone, and we’d be better off getting smaller amounts of fresher supplies. I mean, if you haven’t used SOY GRITS since 2004, what are the chances you’re going to use them in 2009?