This Tape Dispenser (Yes, a Tape Dispenser) Made Me Love Meal Prep
I do not find myself frequently getting sucked into purchases via TikTok. But a surprising impulse buy, courtesy of Tess Mangione, a creator who has the kind of effortless bob and expensive sweater collection I dream about, has kicked my meal prep into a new gear. It was not her cabinet organizer or splashy set of storage containers. No, reader, it was an extra-large tape dispenser. Shortly after hearing about how useful it could be for labeling jams and various pickled items, I ordered my own.
I was surprised at its sturdiness and heft; I didn’t know tape dispensers could be this serious. It felt like it belonged on a construction site. Every day the tape dispenser has lived on my countertop I get a little pulse of dopamine from its industrial look and the way that it serves as a physical representation of my serious commitment to both food prep and pantry organization. It was an objet d’art, a knickknack—but also one that signified executive (chef) function.
The dispenser’s formidable place on my countertop next to the cutting board and the fruit bowl had a positive impact on my cooking life: Seeing it there, I felt compelled to do a food prep task, quite simply so I had an excuse to label a jar with my new masking tape dispenser. I made a batch of granola, labeled it with purple tape, and dated it. I marinated celery in the dregs of a jar of chili oil, adding soy sauce and rice vinegar. You can bet I labeled the hell out of that jar. I developed a fixation with making batches of soy-marinated eggs—because they were delicious, but also because they needed to be labeled. In the dark depths of winter, I made cozy batches of chicken stock and ragu and froze them, labeled. I caramelized a big batch of onions and froze them in ice cube trays and, reader, I labeled them.
The next thing I knew, I was knee-deep in a full pantry reorganization project, free pouring bags of chia seeds and hemp hearts into jars and labeling them with my new dispenser. With the tape dispenser at my side, I became someone who organized as an actual hobby.
As previously mentioned, the dispenser’s three tape spaces mean that you can hold three different colors of tape at one time, allowing you to come up with a color coding system for your own pantry organization. Maybe the grains are all in one color, the beans are in another, and the nuts are in a third. Or maybe you use a color to signify the month that you purchase something so you have an immediate visual when an ingredient has been around too long.
Of course, I’ve been using the masking tape for its primary purpose too, which has proven useful more than I would have expected. When the lid to a quart container jar isn’t quite secure, or when some plastic wrap or foil needs extra security, I’ve pulled out the tape to help cover leftovers. I have taped bags of cereal and chips closed instead of using a chip clip. I know you girlies love your label makers, and there is an argument that the label maker offers a cleaner aesthetic than the masking tape does. But, I’ll make this my final word: Your label maker can’t tape stuff and that makes it inferior.
My sweaters are from the Gap and I haven’t had a haircut in months, but allow me to pay Tess’s TikTok influence forward and highly recommend that you get an industrial-strength tape dispenser for your kitchen.