This is my Fridge

When I moved into my apartment over a year and a half ago I had to wait over a week for my refrigerator to arrive. After living on a loaf of bread’s worth of peanut butter sandwiches, stacks of dry crackers, a bag of pita chips, and too many visits to Jack ‘n the box for Sourdough breakfast sandwiches, I vowed never to take my fridge for granted again. I would open its door with awe, like a treasure box. I would clean it monthly, emptying its contents and rubbing down its cool glass shelves with vinegar and water. I wouldn’t defile it by stuffing half-wrapped blocks of cheese or leftover tuna eaten straight from the can or topless Tupperwares of meat sauce. I would save only the food I knew I would eat in the next day or so, and I would package it expertly with an airtight seal.

Here is what is in my fridge today, no deletions, no substitutions, no enhancements. This is my fridge, as it is, in the raw:

The butter bin: a box of Tillamook butter, outside of which is a half a stick of butter with a wax paper flap protecting the exposed edge. Squashed beneath is the empty box of generic cream cheese from when I made a lox and bagel dinner for my honey.

In the bin below, an unused carton of Vitasoy soymilk, which sat baking in my car for weeks (months?) after I snagged it as a freebie. Why I thought I would drink it after its tenure in the backseat of my car during a scorching Southern California summer, I do not know. Maybe because I tend to eat things most people would toss, but there it sits, expectant, dejected.

A near empty tub of cottage cheese, maybe 3 weeks old, with about 45 curds in it. Just enough curds to load onto a sesame cracker, just enough to justify keeping it around, but old enough that I haven’t touched it in a fortnight and probably never will.

A pint of organic Half and Half. It, too, has been there for weeks, because I paid too much for it, and every time I sniff it it smells fine. The thing is, I don’t use half and half; it’s there for guests to put in coffee. And I almost never have guests, and can’t remember the last time I served one coffee.



The next bin inspires less guilt. A bottle of acidophilus, a fresh carton of chicken broth, Soy milk. Below it is my nutbin where I keep my mason jar of raw almonds and broken resealable bag of walnut bits, both of which I sprinkle on my morning granola and yogurt. I just started storing my nuts in the fridge because someone told me they keep better that way, something about fats going bad at room temp, and somehow I reasoned they would also be more nutritious that way. So I’m very pleased with my nutbin. It is in just the right place, and there are only nuts in my nutbin, no crusty bottles of condiments or jars of pickle juice. My nutbin is the only part of my fridge that is the way I want it to be.


To be continued...