You must get creative with the food you have, using it all up before you pack your bags and head out on your next adventure.

It took all your self-control not to over-shop at the grocery store, despite the perfectly rounded artichokes and thick stalks of asparagus staring you in the face.  You bought only the bare necessities: coffee and wine.  It took even more reserve not to go to the farmers' market; that would only lead to a fridge full of spring's bounty--tender lettuce, red radishes, and if you were lucky, garlic scapes.

You know mustn't do that, hard as it is.  Everything but the kitchen sink must go, so you pile your plate with all manner of strange meals. You are traveling soon--that phrase playing round and round your head, a constant reminder--and have to clean out your fridge of anything and everything that won't last till you get back. 

It has been a series of creative lunches and kitchen-sink dinners.  There was the breakfast omelet with one and a half bell peppers and small wedges of several different kinds of hard cheeses; the lunch of quick pickled carrots, radishes, and cucumbers; the simple dinner of crudités and aioli to use up those eggs and any stray vegetables at the bottom of your crisper.  Everything must go!

Then there is the carton of half and half that you try to ration out across the next four mornings, so you don't have to buy another and have it go to waste.  There is the watermelon you had forgotten about--the one you intended to juice.  A watermelon cooler must be made, perhaps several.  You will diligently work on whittling down the contents of your fridge until it is nothing but bare shelves and butter, mustard jars and a wine bottle.

It's as integral to your travel preparations as packing your bags and boarding that plane.  Yes, this is kitchen sink-ing it.