Homemade Peanut Sauce That Was All Wrong But My Wife's Reluctant To Toss
August 17, 2020 9:33 AM Subscribe
The refrigerator is the only thing we’re forced to share that we have drastically different views on how to use. And I’m not sure how you turn a person who insists on pickling her own carrots into a person who doesn’t also feel entitled to stack jars of them eight deep on the highest shelf, but that is the person I ended up married to! Has anyone ever gotten divorced citing “too many assorted milks?” Is this the “for worse” I am resigned to? from To Love, Honor, and Share Fridge Space by Samantha Irby
….I feel seen and I don't like it.
Because I'm the one who is probably taking up all that fridge room.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:53 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
Because I'm the one who is probably taking up all that fridge room.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:53 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
I have seen a two fridge rule save relationships.
posted by The Power Nap at 9:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
posted by The Power Nap at 9:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? I feel like this article should have continued into...something?
I am definitely a person like the author's wife (uh, I have most of those ingredients in the fridge right now) but I am fortunate that my spouse is an accomplished enough cook that he's not totally on the opposite side of the axis from me. There is occasional grumbling of "are those jars in the back still...something...?"
I don't let it get gross, though. Full, sure, but no decomposing leftovers, ever.
posted by desuetude at 9:55 AM on August 17, 2020 [24 favorites]
I am definitely a person like the author's wife (uh, I have most of those ingredients in the fridge right now) but I am fortunate that my spouse is an accomplished enough cook that he's not totally on the opposite side of the axis from me. There is occasional grumbling of "are those jars in the back still...something...?"
I don't let it get gross, though. Full, sure, but no decomposing leftovers, ever.
posted by desuetude at 9:55 AM on August 17, 2020 [24 favorites]
AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? I feel like this article should have continued into...something?
Sam Irby is a very slice-of-life-y author who first came to prominence through a personal blog, so a lot of her work is like this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Sam Irby is a very slice-of-life-y author who first came to prominence through a personal blog, so a lot of her work is like this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: from the store, WHICH IS HOW I LIKE THEM
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
I do throw things out, really, and soy sauce doesn't need to be refrigerated. I have many condiments, jelly, jam, dressings, a bowl of random sauce packets. Several types of pickles, including homemade (quick-pickled red onion is delicious with many things). Sriracha-, Wasabi- and regular Mayo (there was a sale).
The difference between Catsup and Ketchup is spelling.
Just establish a shelf that's Yours and settle down.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
The difference between Catsup and Ketchup is spelling.
Just establish a shelf that's Yours and settle down.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Also, too many assorted milks is a good user name.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on August 17, 2020 [9 favorites]
This is exactly why I bought the extra expensive fridge with a built-in incinerator and self-cleaning Japanese toilet technology. It's like the sins never happened.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2020 [14 favorites]
Irby's newsletter has essays and Judge Mathis play-by-plays.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
brb i have some cleaning to do
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:06 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:06 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
This has been a point of contention in our household lately, until the divine intervention last week of the derecho and its attendant extended electricity interruption. That was my casus belli to PURGE. And things are better now. For a little while.
posted by notoriety public at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Apparently that ill wind had a silver lining. Or something like that.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
The real treasure was the microbes she made along the way.
posted by wellred at 10:10 AM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by wellred at 10:10 AM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
I made a desert, and called it peace.
posted by notoriety public at 10:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 10:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
As a general rule, I try to limit condiments to the door of my fridge. That way most shelf space can be devoted to cheese, as is right and appropriate.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [49 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [49 favorites]
Try this with a 2/3 sized apartment fridge and medication that needs to be refrigerated. Also, I'm penciling in an umeboshi eating party in 2024, just be patient.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:12 AM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:12 AM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
when she said they were a combined 175 years old, i think she meant 75. i think that's a typo.
posted by rude.boy at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by rude.boy at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
also, before marriage, my wife and i agreed - coke not pepsi, and mayonnaise not miracle whip. that provided a decent foundation. luckily, our fridge approaches worked out to be basically compatible.
posted by rude.boy at 10:24 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by rude.boy at 10:24 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
This is why I have a compost pile. Things go bad, I can return them to nature. I don't have to feel guilt. Back to the soil, skunky beer and slimy greens! Let your rotting enrich future plants. Circle of Life and all that shit.
posted by emjaybee at 10:26 AM on August 17, 2020 [19 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 10:26 AM on August 17, 2020 [19 favorites]
What's even more dangerous is when both partners in a relationship are condiment hoarders and preserve makers. One-half to two-thirds of our fridge is filled with jars, tubes and tubs at any given time.
posted by me3dia at 10:28 AM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by me3dia at 10:28 AM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm confused - if the fridge is not for storing condiments, jams, sauces and produce... what is it for? I'm on the wife's side
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:50 AM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:50 AM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
I'm confused - if the fridge is not for storing condiments, jams, sauces and produce... what is it for?
Alcohol and cheese.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:02 AM on August 17, 2020 [38 favorites]
Alcohol and cheese.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:02 AM on August 17, 2020 [38 favorites]
This is my Bear. Whenever I wish to gnash my teeth, I think seriously about my ridiculously huge hot sauce collection in our pantry. We're all kinda hard to live with.
posted by bearwife at 11:10 AM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by bearwife at 11:10 AM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
A second fridge is cheaper than a marriage counselor, and such a glorious decadence.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:11 AM on August 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
This is why we go to college.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Ugh. I feel this so much. I open my fridge and swear mightily at how jam-packed it is, such that nothing more can go in and nothing can be found amongst the chaos to be taken out. And I feel a sense of loathing for the person who conducts their life in such an uncivilized manner, and she is me.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2020 [27 favorites]
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2020 [27 favorites]
There are currently four types of milk in the fridge. Is that too many assorted milks?
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 11:20 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 11:20 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Alcohol and cheese bin of many cheeses.
So, so many cheeses...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
So, so many cheeses...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
A fridge should have between 48-72 cans of fizzy water in it, a shelf for cheeses, and an empty shelf for leftover pizza boxes. That's it. No liquid condiments allowed because they are uniformly disgusting. If a condiment is not a modifier that comes before the word "salt" it does not belong in my kitchen. Exception: salted butter, but that's a syntactic exception only.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:26 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:26 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
soy sauce doesn't need to be refrigerated.
Neither does fish sauce, oyster sauce, chili sauce, steak sauce, most of those pastes, mayo (unless it's homemade), or any of the jams if they'll be consumed within a few weeks (unless it's sugar free or something, otherwise the sugar is the preservative).
And depending on how much bottled water you drink in a day, you keep that many in there and do the take 1 put 1 rule.
posted by linux at 11:32 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Neither does fish sauce, oyster sauce, chili sauce, steak sauce, most of those pastes, mayo (unless it's homemade), or any of the jams if they'll be consumed within a few weeks (unless it's sugar free or something, otherwise the sugar is the preservative).
And depending on how much bottled water you drink in a day, you keep that many in there and do the take 1 put 1 rule.
posted by linux at 11:32 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
it turns out if you eat stuff in the fridge regularly, you can keep putting new stuff in!
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:32 AM on August 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:32 AM on August 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
Note: we don't do bottled water (we have one of those faucet attached purifiers). But we do the take 1 put 1 rule for the soju.
Priorities.
posted by linux at 11:33 AM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Priorities.
posted by linux at 11:33 AM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
The article itself is pretty great, but based on the headline now I'm hoping an article exists that covers "Homemade Peanut Sauce That Was All Wrong But My Wife's Reluctant To Toss" as an emotion. Because I'm definitely the one that makes the weird sauces and usually they work but sometimes it went not bad, but not as hoped and now I don't want to throw it out because sunk-cost but also I need to make space for the 3 quarts of roux I made and...
In short, <3 articles that explore food-emotions. Emotions-through-food is more common, but I also like the specific emotions that food can evoke that aren't solely transmuting other topics.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:40 AM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
In short, <3 articles that explore food-emotions. Emotions-through-food is more common, but I also like the specific emotions that food can evoke that aren't solely transmuting other topics.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:40 AM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
I haven't read Irby's new book, but We Are Never Meeting in Real Life was excellent, and her wife was still her girlfriend in that book. I'm so pleased they're still sharing a fridge together, however discontentedly. I want good things to happen for Sam Irby.
posted by gladly at 11:45 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
posted by gladly at 11:45 AM on August 17, 2020 [22 favorites]
I don't keep my own fridge that way, but I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with the kind of more, shall we say, "abundant" fridge that she is describing (unless the problem is that you are buying way more than you use, leading to spoilage and waste). But buried in there was this tidbit that to me is way weirder than someone keeping bad peanut sauce too long:
the single can of Diet Coke I like to have first thing in the morning
posted by Dip Flash at 11:47 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
the single can of Diet Coke I like to have first thing in the morning
posted by Dip Flash at 11:47 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
So then...great peanut sauce recipes anyone? I do love me a good peanut sauce but never quite mastered it...and this article is making me hungry.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:51 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:51 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
But buried in there was this tidbit that to me is way weirder than someone keeping bad peanut sauce too long:
the single can of Diet Coke I like to have first thing in the morning
Oh that used to be me! Only it was regular Coke. Actually, it was Mountain Dew.
What can I say, I was in college.
posted by JanetLand at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
the single can of Diet Coke I like to have first thing in the morning
Oh that used to be me! Only it was regular Coke. Actually, it was Mountain Dew.
What can I say, I was in college.
posted by JanetLand at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
the single can of Diet Coke I like to have first thing in the morning
Look, my friend, some of us don't drink coffee but we still like caffeine.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [26 favorites]
Look, my friend, some of us don't drink coffee but we still like caffeine.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2020 [26 favorites]
when she said they were a combined 175 years old, i think she meant 75.
Irby's writing is often characterized by (amongst other things) a lot of playful hyperbole; in her blog & newsletter the number 137 seems to come up a lot, for example. (Discussing her make-up collection at one point she says something to the effect of "my 137 blushes!") It's possible it's a typo, but since both she and I believe her wife are closer to 40 than 35 I think it's probably intentional.
wait, on preview it occurs to me rude.boy might, in fact, be joking. If so pls disregard it's been a long day
posted by peakes at 12:03 PM on August 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
Irby's writing is often characterized by (amongst other things) a lot of playful hyperbole; in her blog & newsletter the number 137 seems to come up a lot, for example. (Discussing her make-up collection at one point she says something to the effect of "my 137 blushes!") It's possible it's a typo, but since both she and I believe her wife are closer to 40 than 35 I think it's probably intentional.
wait, on preview it occurs to me rude.boy might, in fact, be joking. If so pls disregard it's been a long day
posted by peakes at 12:03 PM on August 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
175 in 2020 years, probably.
posted by biogeo at 12:08 PM on August 17, 2020 [31 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 12:08 PM on August 17, 2020 [31 favorites]
assorted Blue Apron ingredients we never used but she is, again, loath to throw out
[x] I am in this photo and I don't like it
posted by soelo at 12:13 PM on August 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
[x] I am in this photo and I don't like it
posted by soelo at 12:13 PM on August 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
This is what I encountered:I feel attacked. Enjoying the melting pot is to try all the sauces.
fish sauce
oyster sauce
sriracha
sambal oelek
gochujang
four? five? kinds of mustard
catsup (not to be confused with ketchup, which is actually good)
chili sauce
horseradish
soy sauce
dark soy sauce
[...]
...all this ridiculous nonsense.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:43 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
The wife and I both agreed we should have a shelf devoted to various mustards, so everything else has worked out.
Except for those goddamn boiled peanuts
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:46 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
Except for those goddamn boiled peanuts
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:46 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
I honestly always improvise peanut sauce in my house:
peanut butter
sesame oil
apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, whatever we got
soy sauce
(you could use fish sauce if you want, we don't eat it)
a little brown sugar or honey
hot sauce, I like sriracha
Spices u like (I sometimes use fresh garlic/ginger but if I don't have fresh or I'm just lazy I've used powder and it's still good)
I usually eyeball amounts and then taste and adapt.
If you prefer a set recipe, I also made this recently and it was tasty!
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:46 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
peanut butter
sesame oil
apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, whatever we got
soy sauce
(you could use fish sauce if you want, we don't eat it)
a little brown sugar or honey
hot sauce, I like sriracha
Spices u like (I sometimes use fresh garlic/ginger but if I don't have fresh or I'm just lazy I've used powder and it's still good)
I usually eyeball amounts and then taste and adapt.
If you prefer a set recipe, I also made this recently and it was tasty!
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:46 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
I am in charge of the fridge because I'm the only one who cooks, so all the leftovers management, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. is in my wheelhouse and naturally that includes the fridge.
1. Some of us have minimal (or no) pantry space so it's actually more space-saving to keep condiments in the fridge regardless of their shelf stability.
2. The fridge is never overflowing though it might be quite full right after a grocery run, and I have in my head a running list of all the things that should be thrown out but I haven't gotten around to tossing yet so I can *always* make more room if needed.
3. We used to have upwards of 4 kinds of milk but we're down to just two - sweetened vanilla soy for his cereal and unsweetened unvanilla'd soy for my cooking and smoothies.
4. Working from home means we go through leftovers pretty efficiently as lunch, but I'll admit to saving weird half-servings because I hate waste but almost never finding a way to use them up, so they eventually get tossed anyway. I finally got to the point where I don't save the other half of a lemon when I use one to cook because it always went bad before I needed lemon again.
5. Room must be made for at least 2 cans of at least 2 flavors of fizzy water (plus a couple bottles of Topo Chico if we're being fancy) and 4-12 cans/bottles of beer, which is funny because we don't really drink much but when you want one you want it to be cold.
Partner has never complained about the state of the fridge but he *did* just order a beverage fridge for the basement this very morning so maybe there was some unspoken annoyance there and I am so looking forward to the glorious utopia of an entire extra shelf in the fridge. Plus not having half-full boxes of fizzy water stacked in the dining room.
posted by misskaz at 12:53 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
1. Some of us have minimal (or no) pantry space so it's actually more space-saving to keep condiments in the fridge regardless of their shelf stability.
2. The fridge is never overflowing though it might be quite full right after a grocery run, and I have in my head a running list of all the things that should be thrown out but I haven't gotten around to tossing yet so I can *always* make more room if needed.
3. We used to have upwards of 4 kinds of milk but we're down to just two - sweetened vanilla soy for his cereal and unsweetened unvanilla'd soy for my cooking and smoothies.
4. Working from home means we go through leftovers pretty efficiently as lunch, but I'll admit to saving weird half-servings because I hate waste but almost never finding a way to use them up, so they eventually get tossed anyway. I finally got to the point where I don't save the other half of a lemon when I use one to cook because it always went bad before I needed lemon again.
5. Room must be made for at least 2 cans of at least 2 flavors of fizzy water (plus a couple bottles of Topo Chico if we're being fancy) and 4-12 cans/bottles of beer, which is funny because we don't really drink much but when you want one you want it to be cold.
Partner has never complained about the state of the fridge but he *did* just order a beverage fridge for the basement this very morning so maybe there was some unspoken annoyance there and I am so looking forward to the glorious utopia of an entire extra shelf in the fridge. Plus not having half-full boxes of fizzy water stacked in the dining room.
posted by misskaz at 12:53 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
fish sauceThis is the kind of ridiculous condiment collection I have, and my power was out for three and a half days. I still have to figure out what I can keep and what I have to toss. (This weekend should've been Fridge Toss Day, but alas, my neighbors got there before I did, and we share a too-small dumpster.)
oyster sauce
sriracha
sambal oelek
gochujang
four? five? kinds of mustard
catsup (not to be confused with ketchup, which is actually good)
chili sauce
horseradish
soy sauce
dark soy sauce
posted by Jeanne at 12:57 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
The older I get, the happier I am to live alone. You know what's in my fridge? Whatever the fuck I want.
posted by Automocar at 1:10 PM on August 17, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 1:10 PM on August 17, 2020 [15 favorites]
Except for those goddamn boiled peanuts
Give them to me, I'll take them.
posted by biogeo at 1:18 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Give them to me, I'll take them.
posted by biogeo at 1:18 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
I was feeling a bit too seen at the start of that condiment list, but as it went on I found myself feeling relieved for not having quite as much stuff. The complicating factor with our fridge negotiation is that I live with a cocktail enthusiast, which means that much of the shelf space in the door is given over to assorted fortified wines and homemade syrups.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 1:20 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 1:20 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
I have this belief that when you become an adult, you set up your refrigerator as your mother and father had theirs. Milk on the right, condiments on the door, bottles and jars on the 2nd shelf, other liquids on the top left, etc. I go to my brother's house and even if I have not been there since Thanksgiving, I know exactly where to look for things.
Then, Covid-19. My gf moved in on March 17th. I refer to it as the day the music died as that line about Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in American Pie seems to fit. My refrigerator has not been the same since. I tried the, "this is your shelf, this is mine and this is shared" thing. Ha! Now, on Tuesday nights when she has her zoom call with her friends, I go rearrange the frig to the way it is supposed to be. Gone are the days when I could keep a case of beer and a case of diet cokes cold.
posted by AugustWest at 1:22 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
Then, Covid-19. My gf moved in on March 17th. I refer to it as the day the music died as that line about Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in American Pie seems to fit. My refrigerator has not been the same since. I tried the, "this is your shelf, this is mine and this is shared" thing. Ha! Now, on Tuesday nights when she has her zoom call with her friends, I go rearrange the frig to the way it is supposed to be. Gone are the days when I could keep a case of beer and a case of diet cokes cold.
posted by AugustWest at 1:22 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
I worry that the author snuck a peek into mine and my wife's fridge as inspiration; I swear, the list they provided sound like what I see every day.
posted by vernondalhart at 1:24 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by vernondalhart at 1:24 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Give them to me, I'll take them.
It's just so much easier to throw out 3 of the 4 containers.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:29 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
It's just so much easier to throw out 3 of the 4 containers.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:29 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
I am definitely on the wife's side here. I'm in a constant battle w/ my gf over whether or not we can/should have more food in the house than we can consume in a single meal. I'm sorry, I don't want to go to the goddamn store every day of the week, we can buy some things in advance and they will keep (although we both invest heavily in spices and condiments and oils/vinegars... right now I have six store-bought mustards plus two I made myself).
But my mom grew up with hardcore food scarcity, and I experienced a lot of that well into my 30s, and an empty fridge makes me panic even though I make more than enough money now for that to not be a problem. My mom always had a fridge bursting with food, and it almost never went bad. Mostly it's the herbs, which come in packs that are too big for what we need and which we are now growing for ourselves so that we waste less.
I also keep shit in the fridge that doesn't need to be in there because of space reasons, but some brands (of steak sauces, etc.) do need to be refrigerated, while others don't. Some things I keep in the fridge that don't need to be there because I prefer them cold (all my fruit, oranges especially).
posted by Fish Sauce at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
But my mom grew up with hardcore food scarcity, and I experienced a lot of that well into my 30s, and an empty fridge makes me panic even though I make more than enough money now for that to not be a problem. My mom always had a fridge bursting with food, and it almost never went bad. Mostly it's the herbs, which come in packs that are too big for what we need and which we are now growing for ourselves so that we waste less.
I also keep shit in the fridge that doesn't need to be in there because of space reasons, but some brands (of steak sauces, etc.) do need to be refrigerated, while others don't. Some things I keep in the fridge that don't need to be there because I prefer them cold (all my fruit, oranges especially).
posted by Fish Sauce at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
And unto you, I say: There are Rules of Refrigeration.
The meat shall go in the bottom drawer bearing the mark of MEAT DRAWER, for there it is coldest.
The vegetables shall go in the bottom drawer bearing the mark of FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, for they shall be happiest there together. Except for onions and potatoes, which abide in dry darkness and cool.
The bottom shelf, where it is also cool, shall support yogurt and sour cream and assorted dairy.
The shelf with headspace enough for a milk jug, a tall bottle of orange juice, and a full jar--not just the dregs--of cold-brew coffee shall be where these fluids belong evermore, next to the cheeses, in the drawer marked CHEESE.
The shallow shelf shall hold things of no height, like bags of tortillas.
The Shelf of Eye-Level shall be dedicated to leftovers, and these leftovers must be in containers with proper lids, and aluminum foil "lids" shall be considered an abomination before the gods of Refrigerator Tetris.
The top shelf tastes of vinegar: yea, and pickles, and brined things, and other not-quick-to-spoil items, concealing the rarely-used nasty olives from easy sight.
The door one does not speaketh of, but shall be the eternal home to sauces of all sorts, sauces, yea, that often are forgotten when people leave them on the table though no harm is done, it is claimed.
SO LET IT BE DONE, FAMILY WHO CANNOT FRIDGE CORRECTLY.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [65 favorites]
The meat shall go in the bottom drawer bearing the mark of MEAT DRAWER, for there it is coldest.
The vegetables shall go in the bottom drawer bearing the mark of FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, for they shall be happiest there together. Except for onions and potatoes, which abide in dry darkness and cool.
The bottom shelf, where it is also cool, shall support yogurt and sour cream and assorted dairy.
The shelf with headspace enough for a milk jug, a tall bottle of orange juice, and a full jar--not just the dregs--of cold-brew coffee shall be where these fluids belong evermore, next to the cheeses, in the drawer marked CHEESE.
The shallow shelf shall hold things of no height, like bags of tortillas.
The Shelf of Eye-Level shall be dedicated to leftovers, and these leftovers must be in containers with proper lids, and aluminum foil "lids" shall be considered an abomination before the gods of Refrigerator Tetris.
The top shelf tastes of vinegar: yea, and pickles, and brined things, and other not-quick-to-spoil items, concealing the rarely-used nasty olives from easy sight.
The door one does not speaketh of, but shall be the eternal home to sauces of all sorts, sauces, yea, that often are forgotten when people leave them on the table though no harm is done, it is claimed.
SO LET IT BE DONE, FAMILY WHO CANNOT FRIDGE CORRECTLY.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [65 favorites]
Oh great MonkeyToes!
What of us impoverished few who have no such "Meat Drawer" or "Cheese" drawer, but yet only one single drawer at the bottom and a few shelves?
...In all seriousness - I have seen that there are sorting bins you can get that go inside a fridge and I am seriously entertaining getting some. Any one have a recommendation?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
What of us impoverished few who have no such "Meat Drawer" or "Cheese" drawer, but yet only one single drawer at the bottom and a few shelves?
...In all seriousness - I have seen that there are sorting bins you can get that go inside a fridge and I am seriously entertaining getting some. Any one have a recommendation?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I know that in my prior life, my ex partner and I did not keep an immaculate fridge by any stretch, but it was largely an area of agreement. Shame, but also agreement. But oh sweet jesus, my mother's fridge. For the last 10 years she has not kept any quantity of FRESH food, for CONSUMPTION, in her fridge. It was just cold storage for leftovers, wine, and trash. Now that a person who eats food lives with her (me) her shopping has the erratic nature of a kid who's been turned loose. One day I opened the door to see FOUR loaves of bread. We don't make it through ONE loaf before mold takes over. Another day there were several large trays of deli meats! There are many, many mystery bottles and leftovers...
all to say, I just cannot wait to have my own fridge again. I think I have been reborn into the church of not mucking up your fridge.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:47 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
all to say, I just cannot wait to have my own fridge again. I think I have been reborn into the church of not mucking up your fridge.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:47 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Mayofreude is the German word for the feeling of mixed affection, annoyance, and disgust for the occasions when someone close to you makes a homemade condiment that no one actually wants but which no one theories out.
posted by sotonohito at 2:02 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 2:02 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
I suspect my wife may have had this article commissioned as I feel simultaneously seen and deeply judged.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:08 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:08 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
I think that in the name of marriage they should just get a drinks fridge for the Diet Coke. Like how I put my husband's morning Mountain Dew (he's a web developer; forgive him) in a separate mini fridge so he never has to complain about me having put three types of mustard and two salsas in the way of his caffeine.
posted by BlueJae at 2:10 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueJae at 2:10 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
During the last few years, my fridge life has become very complicated. I have suddenly acquired roommates, and they are 35 years younger than me. They are nice, but three out of four are from other families with different food traditions. And even though they acknowledge that our food is superior, they don't seem to understand that the fridge is part of this superiority.
The top shelf in my fridge (it's still mine, goddamit), it filled to the rim with sauces and condiments and pickles.
The drawers and the bottom shelf are filled with produce. In between are leftovers and meat and perhaps a bit more pickles and stuff. It's that simple. In the door are all the dairy, the water and some more sauces and all the cheeses.
Except now, everything is anarchy. How can someone not see a simple system???
That all said, I have just last week made a carrot pickle that I don't really know if I like, but I am keeping because maybe it will be good for something or someone. After reading this article I may just compost it. Maybe.
And: interestingly, two of my roomies are foodies, two see food as fuel. But I've noticed over time that the foodies are winning the argument. At first there was a lot of junk food in that fridge, but now it is becoming less and less common. Reading this I realize I should explain how one of the guys could make his beloved curry for a tenth of the price of the one he buys at the store, and better. But he would need to use some of all the mystery stuff in the fridge.
posted by mumimor at 2:30 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
The top shelf in my fridge (it's still mine, goddamit), it filled to the rim with sauces and condiments and pickles.
The drawers and the bottom shelf are filled with produce. In between are leftovers and meat and perhaps a bit more pickles and stuff. It's that simple. In the door are all the dairy, the water and some more sauces and all the cheeses.
Except now, everything is anarchy. How can someone not see a simple system???
That all said, I have just last week made a carrot pickle that I don't really know if I like, but I am keeping because maybe it will be good for something or someone. After reading this article I may just compost it. Maybe.
And: interestingly, two of my roomies are foodies, two see food as fuel. But I've noticed over time that the foodies are winning the argument. At first there was a lot of junk food in that fridge, but now it is becoming less and less common. Reading this I realize I should explain how one of the guys could make his beloved curry for a tenth of the price of the one he buys at the store, and better. But he would need to use some of all the mystery stuff in the fridge.
posted by mumimor at 2:30 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
And I loved this article about loving someone who is different from yourself.
posted by mumimor at 2:31 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 2:31 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
We, two adults who are also roughly 175 years old, have two and a half refrigerators and a chest freezer and my husband still can't find anything and constantly puts stuff Where It Does Not Go, which is an algorithm that lives only in my mind and changes depending on what we have the most of and when I think it will get used.
I also have two tubs of rather aged homemade peanut sauce that should be thrown out, and which have long been violating Somebody's Law (from BA, it might have been Sohla or maybe more likely Gaby) that you decant everything into (labeled!!) deli containers AND you RE-decant into smaller deli containers as you use it up because yes that means you have to wash more deli containers but you also gain precious real estate.
I am aware I am difficult to live with. We eat well, though.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:51 PM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
I also have two tubs of rather aged homemade peanut sauce that should be thrown out, and which have long been violating Somebody's Law (from BA, it might have been Sohla or maybe more likely Gaby) that you decant everything into (labeled!!) deli containers AND you RE-decant into smaller deli containers as you use it up because yes that means you have to wash more deli containers but you also gain precious real estate.
I am aware I am difficult to live with. We eat well, though.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:51 PM on August 17, 2020 [12 favorites]
We have this weird thing going on with the spice cabinet where we think we're out of something and buy it three times over or think we have it and have zero. Plus the oddball bulk spice purchase. So at any given moment there are three bags of cumin and fennel, what looks like a hay bale of sage, two jars of asofetida that need to be thrown out, grains of paradise for no sane reason, a big jar of sumac and like 40 single serving packets, never enough oregano, and the occasional surplus of epazote or rue.
Don't even get me started on dry goods, beans, forty three assorted herbal teas, two pounds of loose leaf black tea, fifteen kinds of flour minimum, etc...
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:58 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Don't even get me started on dry goods, beans, forty three assorted herbal teas, two pounds of loose leaf black tea, fifteen kinds of flour minimum, etc...
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:58 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Now I'm thinking about the time I laboriously hand ground and toasted spices for like a half hour to make a tiny jar of garam masala for a quarter teaspoon worth in a recipe instead of just substituting from the half pound of berbere spice mix which would've been almost the exact same.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:02 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:02 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Not the fridge, but I am definitely the person who sees an interesting recipe, buys all the niche ingredients for that recipe, and then never makes the recipe because it looks too complicated and what if it turns out it isn't good. Sure I need rose water and almond paste and ras el hanout.
Also this article sounds a lot like my mom's fridge, which causes me much dismay whenever I visit her. So it was a surprising read for me, as it dawned on me that it perfectly reflected my own feelings since my mom temporarily moved in with us to ride out COVID, and I am already eyeing her grocery purchases warily.
posted by Mchelly at 3:04 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Also this article sounds a lot like my mom's fridge, which causes me much dismay whenever I visit her. So it was a surprising read for me, as it dawned on me that it perfectly reflected my own feelings since my mom temporarily moved in with us to ride out COVID, and I am already eyeing her grocery purchases warily.
posted by Mchelly at 3:04 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
As the person who reorganized so many pickled things (along with five fucking jars of homemade flavored simple syrups) just to wedge the new groceries into the fridge yesterday, I feel this article in my soul.
posted by merriment at 3:20 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by merriment at 3:20 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
and then never makes the recipe because it looks too complicated and what if it turns out it isn't good.
I have the opposite problem - I get some small amount of special ingredients I need for some new recipe, just to see if I like it. Which is fine. But then I make the thing, pronounce it very very tasty, get a whole bunch more of the special ingredients....then never get around to making it again before the ingredients spoil/go stale.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:24 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
I have the opposite problem - I get some small amount of special ingredients I need for some new recipe, just to see if I like it. Which is fine. But then I make the thing, pronounce it very very tasty, get a whole bunch more of the special ingredients....then never get around to making it again before the ingredients spoil/go stale.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:24 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
I bought a fridge when I moved out on my own. It is small, just for me. I found out the doors are not bug enough for my 2L milk cartons, let alone the 3L big boys I get when kiddo is with me. Most of the real estate in there is condiment style - sauces and coffee beans, curds and jams and spreads. I live in Australia, and my house is damp, so there is no way anything lives in the pantry that is unsealed (except peanut butter - kiddo eats it by the spoonful). I've had everything from oyster sauce to Vegemite grow nasty colonies in the cupboard, I don't want to risk my jams or marmalade. I have begun meal prepping again and appropriate containers makes an enormous difference. Neatly stacked serves of kangaroo Bolognese, ziplocked chicken strips, easy for fridge and freezer storage.
I think my ex still has condiments, more than a year after I moved out. Same with freezer experiments (tofu ice cream, dumplings I got from Costco). He is cleaning out this weekend so it will be interesting to see what happens. I know I left condiments in my old housemates fridge as well, and in her cupboards. I have always been the designated kitchen witch and fridge magic, a skill I developed from a mother who cannot abide a fridge that is not stuffed to the gills. She has chickens so most of the manky stuff goes to them but there is always at least two types of milk, multitudes of spreads and condiments, and five meals or more of leftovers. I try and create a snack shelf for my kid so she has free range and won't accidentally consume something I need for dinner prep (cream cheese is the usual suspect there), but my new fridge is so bizarrely designed I still just stare at it sometimes, defeated.
My current issue is that to store the milk and jugs of water or cordial, the bottom shelf is set very high. Leaving me with this tiny ridiculous shelf in between smaller ones. It has been great for cookies and meat and so on, when spread on the tray, but it annoys me from an efficiency perspective. As does the SEVEN HOLE egg holder on the door. Why seven? How was that acceptable?
(The Costco visit with my mother last week was a perpetual exercise in "ma it's only me, I have a tiny fridge, I am not buying a seventy pack of juices" and "you have a broken arm for God's sake let me grab that" - nonetheless I have five different types of cheese in my fridge and regret not grabbing the goats cheese)
posted by geek anachronism at 3:28 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
I think my ex still has condiments, more than a year after I moved out. Same with freezer experiments (tofu ice cream, dumplings I got from Costco). He is cleaning out this weekend so it will be interesting to see what happens. I know I left condiments in my old housemates fridge as well, and in her cupboards. I have always been the designated kitchen witch and fridge magic, a skill I developed from a mother who cannot abide a fridge that is not stuffed to the gills. She has chickens so most of the manky stuff goes to them but there is always at least two types of milk, multitudes of spreads and condiments, and five meals or more of leftovers. I try and create a snack shelf for my kid so she has free range and won't accidentally consume something I need for dinner prep (cream cheese is the usual suspect there), but my new fridge is so bizarrely designed I still just stare at it sometimes, defeated.
My current issue is that to store the milk and jugs of water or cordial, the bottom shelf is set very high. Leaving me with this tiny ridiculous shelf in between smaller ones. It has been great for cookies and meat and so on, when spread on the tray, but it annoys me from an efficiency perspective. As does the SEVEN HOLE egg holder on the door. Why seven? How was that acceptable?
(The Costco visit with my mother last week was a perpetual exercise in "ma it's only me, I have a tiny fridge, I am not buying a seventy pack of juices" and "you have a broken arm for God's sake let me grab that" - nonetheless I have five different types of cheese in my fridge and regret not grabbing the goats cheese)
posted by geek anachronism at 3:28 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
I have this belief that when you become an adult, you set up your refrigerator as your mother and father had theirs.
My mother subscribed to the same clusterfucky style of household organization that I do, so that checks out. We each used to have a bumper sticker that said "My only domestic quality is that I live in a house".
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:14 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
My mother subscribed to the same clusterfucky style of household organization that I do, so that checks out. We each used to have a bumper sticker that said "My only domestic quality is that I live in a house".
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:14 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
It's just so much easier to throw out 3 of the 4 containers.
I weep.
posted by biogeo at 4:33 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
I weep.
posted by biogeo at 4:33 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
My MIL’s fridge is the most useless design I’ve ever seen or had to try to organize. It’s very shallow in terms of depth front to back and all the shelves are set up at short heights so you can’t put tall containers such as milk or ketchup except in the door and ugh milk shouldn’t go in the door. Also there is a “beverage rack” on one of the shelves which lets you put a whole six bottles of water (or beer), but that hogs up the whole shelf so you can’t really use it for anything else except really small things like yogurt or sticks of butter. Then the freezer is one of those sets of drawers which I guess is cool but it takes three times as long to find the frozen corn so all the cold air just flows out.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Hey, I need my new kimchi and an old kimchi. And my current peach shrub I am drinking along with the nectarine shrub in development. Almond milk, soy milk, cow milk, buttermilk. Every condiment you could ever imagine. All kinds of nut butters. So many homemade jams and jellies. Sourdough starter. Flax seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds. It looks like a science lab of jars but it is spick and span!!!
posted by gryphonlover at 6:06 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by gryphonlover at 6:06 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
There are currently four types of milk in the fridge. Is that too many assorted milks?
Aren't they all just yogurt in different stages of development?
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:16 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Aren't they all just yogurt in different stages of development?
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:16 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
my top shelf is designated for empty cans i am too lazy to wash out properly that need to be recycled. the city picks them up once a week (pandemic allowing), but i don't use enough to set them out once a week. i do give them a rinse, but not well enough to sit in a bag in the kitchen for a solid month until there's enough to make it worth putting the bag out.
posted by Clowder of bats at 9:39 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Clowder of bats at 9:39 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Something something dipping mustards
posted by slightlybewildered at 9:45 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by slightlybewildered at 9:45 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
See, I have this thing about not getting rid of things gifted to me. Also, I have a compulsion to ration nice things so they last longer, to the point that I don't always consume them in good time. And people gave me home made jam.
Also, the fridge top shelf is perfect for losing things because you need to bend over to see it. When this fridge does die, I want to replace it with a freezer on the bottom model.
posted by freethefeet at 10:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Also, the fridge top shelf is perfect for losing things because you need to bend over to see it. When this fridge does die, I want to replace it with a freezer on the bottom model.
posted by freethefeet at 10:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
> Sure I need rose water and almond paste and ras el hanout.
Oh my goodness I go through rosewater and ras al hanout like crazy. If those are really your specific languishing special ingredients, I can tell you that a dash of rosewater in pretty much any fruit-based dessert is a good idea. You can season roasted vegetables with ras al hanout to put over rice, or add a generous amount to your crockpot/instapot with a lamb shoulder, a chopped onion, a few carrots, dried apricots if you've got 'em, and broth/water for stew. (Or pull out the meat and improvise yourself some Moroccan-ish tacos, go nuts.)
posted by desuetude at 10:39 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
Oh my goodness I go through rosewater and ras al hanout like crazy. If those are really your specific languishing special ingredients, I can tell you that a dash of rosewater in pretty much any fruit-based dessert is a good idea. You can season roasted vegetables with ras al hanout to put over rice, or add a generous amount to your crockpot/instapot with a lamb shoulder, a chopped onion, a few carrots, dried apricots if you've got 'em, and broth/water for stew. (Or pull out the meat and improvise yourself some Moroccan-ish tacos, go nuts.)
posted by desuetude at 10:39 PM on August 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
Oh, I got distracted. I was going to add my voice to the chorus of keeping my soy sauce, fish sauce, hot sauces, and the like in the fridge because we're short on cupboard space.
(Also this pandemic has me scheming for a wine fridge.)
posted by desuetude at 10:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
(Also this pandemic has me scheming for a wine fridge.)
posted by desuetude at 10:44 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
not so much our fridge as our freezer, where the entire bottom shelf was, at one point, filled to the brim with imported french butters (sooooooo gooood and not easy to come by where we live). The level has gone down, but I do have maybe 2 or 3 emergency Echire stashed away there.
posted by alchemist at 11:55 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by alchemist at 11:55 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
We solve this problem by having the difficult parts in different people.
I am the one who makes odd new condiments I don’t know how to use, buys aspiration kale for that delicious but difficult dish my mother-in-law taught me, and saves the leftover egg yolks from my latest cooking experiment that used twelve egg whites (homemade angel food cake is delicious and freezes well, it turns out).
But he is the one who never throws things out. (Or he takes longer to do so than me anyhow).
We do have some confusion about where sriracha should live, since various different brands have made various claims. It’s in the fridge now, but we both still go to the pantry to look.
posted by nat at 12:31 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
I am the one who makes odd new condiments I don’t know how to use, buys aspiration kale for that delicious but difficult dish my mother-in-law taught me, and saves the leftover egg yolks from my latest cooking experiment that used twelve egg whites (homemade angel food cake is delicious and freezes well, it turns out).
But he is the one who never throws things out. (Or he takes longer to do so than me anyhow).
We do have some confusion about where sriracha should live, since various different brands have made various claims. It’s in the fridge now, but we both still go to the pantry to look.
posted by nat at 12:31 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
It is nice to feel like someone understands me. There are only two of us, it should not be such a battle but:
allllll the experimental shrubs*
so much space required for the homemade kombucha (also requires festering giant scoby jar for some reason allowed to lurk in the corner eating up SHOCKINGLY limited counter space)**
mysterious pickles of indeterminate age, never finished but “they are still good”***
vegetables purchased at the farmer’s market when unsupervised, without a plan for said vegetables****
so so so many tiny jars of homemade jam and syrup*****
unforced Costco errors
misc. unlabeled jars- is it a flavored simple syrup made for a one-off drink? is it a tea run through the strained remains of yet another preservation experiment? is it the drained juice you insisted on saving from the canned tomatoes I used to make pizza sauce because you “might make a Bloody Mary tomorrow?” two months ago but haven’t touched? I certainly may never know.
Fridges should be full of 1) dairy: milk for coffee, all the cheese 2) unprocessed fruit to be eaten straight, vegetables with a mission 3) the fish you took out of the freezer yesterday for today’s dinner 4) diet root beer. I feel strongly about this and yet 12 years into living with this dude we have brokered no fridge peace.
*why drink vinegar?
**see above
***relatedly, why eat vinegar? perhaps 2/3 of our shared space should not be full of things that are Not. For. Me.
****if you are not the regular cook, you should have a plan that YOU execute for purchased unauthorized veggies, right? I thought so.
*****jam is for sparingly filling special occasion cookies, not for regular use, why must we have 20 kinds? could we compromise on a one-in, one-out policy? no, we could not.
posted by charmedimsure at 12:54 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
allllll the experimental shrubs*
so much space required for the homemade kombucha (also requires festering giant scoby jar for some reason allowed to lurk in the corner eating up SHOCKINGLY limited counter space)**
mysterious pickles of indeterminate age, never finished but “they are still good”***
vegetables purchased at the farmer’s market when unsupervised, without a plan for said vegetables****
so so so many tiny jars of homemade jam and syrup*****
unforced Costco errors
misc. unlabeled jars- is it a flavored simple syrup made for a one-off drink? is it a tea run through the strained remains of yet another preservation experiment? is it the drained juice you insisted on saving from the canned tomatoes I used to make pizza sauce because you “might make a Bloody Mary tomorrow?” two months ago but haven’t touched? I certainly may never know.
Fridges should be full of 1) dairy: milk for coffee, all the cheese 2) unprocessed fruit to be eaten straight, vegetables with a mission 3) the fish you took out of the freezer yesterday for today’s dinner 4) diet root beer. I feel strongly about this and yet 12 years into living with this dude we have brokered no fridge peace.
*why drink vinegar?
**see above
***relatedly, why eat vinegar? perhaps 2/3 of our shared space should not be full of things that are Not. For. Me.
****if you are not the regular cook, you should have a plan that YOU execute for purchased unauthorized veggies, right? I thought so.
*****jam is for sparingly filling special occasion cookies, not for regular use, why must we have 20 kinds? could we compromise on a one-in, one-out policy? no, we could not.
posted by charmedimsure at 12:54 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
We have two lazy susans on the top shelf of the fridge for jams, pickles, olives and sauces. You're welcome.
posted by Wantok at 1:39 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Wantok at 1:39 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
geekanachronism the SEVEN HOLE egg holder on the door. Why seven? How was that acceptable?
The egg holder in our fridge door (2 x 6 hole) usually contains half a lime and/or some odd cloves of garlic - in a smaller fridge, enough space to put half a dozen eggs plus those oddments would be handy!
posted by altolinguistic at 4:02 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
The egg holder in our fridge door (2 x 6 hole) usually contains half a lime and/or some odd cloves of garlic - in a smaller fridge, enough space to put half a dozen eggs plus those oddments would be handy!
posted by altolinguistic at 4:02 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Household of one, so no fridge wars over here. When there is condiment creep, when unauthorized vegetables that lack a Meal Trajectory get purchased, when leftovers last beyond "edible"... I do know who to blame. In an ideal world, this would mean that I would not HAVE condiment creep, unauthorized vegetables, or leftovers rotting into inedibility. *sigh*
Also in the fridge (in my high-humidity, bug and ant-prone dwelling): salt, flour, and sugar.
posted by which_chick at 4:06 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Also in the fridge (in my high-humidity, bug and ant-prone dwelling): salt, flour, and sugar.
posted by which_chick at 4:06 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
I have fortunately gotten to the point where most of the fridge real estate is taken up by the batches of soups or salads that I eat through over the course of a week, through brown-bagging lunch or quick, I-can't-be-arsed-to-cook dinners. I also got into the habit of decanting things into smaller containers as I go through them.
I still need to go through the condiment shelf and the produce drawer, though; I tend to salvage fruit by turning it into jam so it doesn't go to waste, but I'm not a big jam eater. So mostly it sits there.
This is also the point in my CSA year when I have huge quantities of eggs; I get a half-dozen every week, but I don't eat through all six each week so they tend to build up. I'm up to two dozen in there now and I am getting another six in 4 days. I may try making a catch-all quiche or frittata to use up some of the eggs and some of the vegetables in one go.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:09 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I still need to go through the condiment shelf and the produce drawer, though; I tend to salvage fruit by turning it into jam so it doesn't go to waste, but I'm not a big jam eater. So mostly it sits there.
This is also the point in my CSA year when I have huge quantities of eggs; I get a half-dozen every week, but I don't eat through all six each week so they tend to build up. I'm up to two dozen in there now and I am getting another six in 4 days. I may try making a catch-all quiche or frittata to use up some of the eggs and some of the vegetables in one go.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:09 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
It is time to talk about The Chicken.
The Chicken just appeared in the fridge at Dryburgh Street. Nobody was willing to admit to putting it in there. It was large, it was raw, it was not wrapped or contained or covered, and after two weeks of just sitting on the bars of the middle shelf it began to smell bad.
I didn't live at Dryburgh Street. My first encounter with The Chicken happened on an evening visit during an incautious search for a second beer. It was about a month old by then and had started to ooze bodily through the shelf.
After two months, nobody who did live at Dryburgh Street was willing to open the fridge door any more. Even after the instant horrified recoil with reflex slam, it just took too long to be able to breathe inside the house again.
Eventually that whole fridge just went away. I have no idea where to. But wherever it is, I'm quite sure it still has a chicken skeleton on the middle shelf and the fossilized remains of numberless microbial civilizations at the bottom.
After experiencing The Chicken, a few of somebody else's minor biological experiments nicely sealed inside their own screw top jars just don't even register.
posted by flabdablet at 4:23 AM on August 18, 2020 [12 favorites]
The Chicken just appeared in the fridge at Dryburgh Street. Nobody was willing to admit to putting it in there. It was large, it was raw, it was not wrapped or contained or covered, and after two weeks of just sitting on the bars of the middle shelf it began to smell bad.
I didn't live at Dryburgh Street. My first encounter with The Chicken happened on an evening visit during an incautious search for a second beer. It was about a month old by then and had started to ooze bodily through the shelf.
After two months, nobody who did live at Dryburgh Street was willing to open the fridge door any more. Even after the instant horrified recoil with reflex slam, it just took too long to be able to breathe inside the house again.
Eventually that whole fridge just went away. I have no idea where to. But wherever it is, I'm quite sure it still has a chicken skeleton on the middle shelf and the fossilized remains of numberless microbial civilizations at the bottom.
After experiencing The Chicken, a few of somebody else's minor biological experiments nicely sealed inside their own screw top jars just don't even register.
posted by flabdablet at 4:23 AM on August 18, 2020 [12 favorites]
At my friend's house, where my horse lives, there is a feed shed. In the feed shed used to reside a chest freezer, connected to electricity via a long heavy-duty extension cord to the friend's mother's house some fifty feet distant.
The chest freezer was level-full of frozen meats, stored against some apocalyptic famine in the offing that only my friend's mother could perceive. This wasn't a problem until someone or something kicked out the cord so that the chest freezer was no longer connected to electricity.
Things in the chest freezer thawed.
Things in the chest freezer began to rot.
Maggots began to cluster around the seal of the chest freezer lid. It was at this juncture that people NOTICED the chest freezer was no longer connected to electricity. Nobody was willing to open the chest freezer to see how bad things were.
And this persisted for more than a year. It wasn't so bad in the winter, see.
Finally, on a cool day at least a year into the Chest Freezer Problem, my friend and I and the fellow who lived in her mother's house set up wooden boards than ran from the ground to the bed of my pickup. We got some large tension straps (like 3" across the width of the strip, the ones for heavy machinery or round bales, the kind with the great big lever handles) and we rigged up a system so that there would be two shove-ers and one tension-strap ratcheter. Dear reader, we shoved-n-ratcheted that chest freezer up onto the bed of my pickup truck without opening it, a process which I will leave to your imagination save for one singular comment from the fellow, to wit:
Oh f*ck, it's dripping!
And then my friend and I drove the chest freezer to town, where I owned a 30-yard drop box (roll-off container? very large metal box with swing door in the rear). We backed the truck up to the drop box, donned rubber gloves, hopped up into the bed of the pickup, and opened the freezer lid. We emptied the freezer into the drop box, piece by dripping piece. It was singularly unpleasant and got more so as we proceeded towards the bottom of the appliance. Things were... wetter down there. Nobody vomited, but it was a near thing. Had we been in a more-enclosed space...
When the freezer was empty, we drove it to the back of the town appliance store, where "empty" appliances could be dropped so that the scrapper guy could pick them up and recycle them into money. (The guy does washers, dryers, stoves, fridges, freezers, and water heaters. For free. You just dump them there and the guy comes and takes them away like magic.)
And then we got fancy coffees at Starbucks and congratulated ourselves on lancing the boil that was the Chest Freezer Problem.
posted by which_chick at 5:42 AM on August 18, 2020 [13 favorites]
The chest freezer was level-full of frozen meats, stored against some apocalyptic famine in the offing that only my friend's mother could perceive. This wasn't a problem until someone or something kicked out the cord so that the chest freezer was no longer connected to electricity.
Things in the chest freezer thawed.
Things in the chest freezer began to rot.
Maggots began to cluster around the seal of the chest freezer lid. It was at this juncture that people NOTICED the chest freezer was no longer connected to electricity. Nobody was willing to open the chest freezer to see how bad things were.
And this persisted for more than a year. It wasn't so bad in the winter, see.
Finally, on a cool day at least a year into the Chest Freezer Problem, my friend and I and the fellow who lived in her mother's house set up wooden boards than ran from the ground to the bed of my pickup. We got some large tension straps (like 3" across the width of the strip, the ones for heavy machinery or round bales, the kind with the great big lever handles) and we rigged up a system so that there would be two shove-ers and one tension-strap ratcheter. Dear reader, we shoved-n-ratcheted that chest freezer up onto the bed of my pickup truck without opening it, a process which I will leave to your imagination save for one singular comment from the fellow, to wit:
Oh f*ck, it's dripping!
And then my friend and I drove the chest freezer to town, where I owned a 30-yard drop box (roll-off container? very large metal box with swing door in the rear). We backed the truck up to the drop box, donned rubber gloves, hopped up into the bed of the pickup, and opened the freezer lid. We emptied the freezer into the drop box, piece by dripping piece. It was singularly unpleasant and got more so as we proceeded towards the bottom of the appliance. Things were... wetter down there. Nobody vomited, but it was a near thing. Had we been in a more-enclosed space...
When the freezer was empty, we drove it to the back of the town appliance store, where "empty" appliances could be dropped so that the scrapper guy could pick them up and recycle them into money. (The guy does washers, dryers, stoves, fridges, freezers, and water heaters. For free. You just dump them there and the guy comes and takes them away like magic.)
And then we got fancy coffees at Starbucks and congratulated ourselves on lancing the boil that was the Chest Freezer Problem.
posted by which_chick at 5:42 AM on August 18, 2020 [13 favorites]
As power grids become more unreliable, we're all going to need to rely on our fridges a lot less. I feel bad for folks who haven't come up with workable solutions to fridge chaos (or who depend on the things because of poor shelf storage space).
Flashing back to some shitty recent AirBnb stays with shared kitchens and poor accommodation of guest needs re: food storage. Basically I'll never share a fridge again if I can help it.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:50 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Flashing back to some shitty recent AirBnb stays with shared kitchens and poor accommodation of guest needs re: food storage. Basically I'll never share a fridge again if I can help it.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:50 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Back in the pre-digital days, when I was married -- both my husbands were photographers -- my fridge was always full of film.
posted by JanetLand at 5:51 AM on August 18, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 5:51 AM on August 18, 2020 [6 favorites]
My friends have been telling me for years that what I need is a small chest freezer. I cook a lot, and I get a lot of produce over the summer that could/should be flash-frozen and tucked away; but my fridge's freezer is a little too small.
However, there is a non-zero chance that my current roommate could move to South Korea in a couple months; and I've done the math and have realized that for the first time in my entire adult life, I can afford an apartment on my own. So I'm seriously entertaining the thought that if my roommate does move, one of the things I might do with one of the extra rooms that opens up is that I turn it into what I call "A Room Of Requirement," where I have a table and some bookshelves and such in there so it can be anything from "extra work space" to "spillover food storage" to "let me put those packages here so I don't forget to mail them" to what have you. I've been thinking of including a mini chest freezer as part of the things I get there.
That would also allow me to spring for the family-size meat packages at the supermarket, re-pack them individually and chuck them in the freezer for long-term single-diner dinners. I'd do that today but the freezer is crammed with all the other stuff currently vying for space...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:22 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
However, there is a non-zero chance that my current roommate could move to South Korea in a couple months; and I've done the math and have realized that for the first time in my entire adult life, I can afford an apartment on my own. So I'm seriously entertaining the thought that if my roommate does move, one of the things I might do with one of the extra rooms that opens up is that I turn it into what I call "A Room Of Requirement," where I have a table and some bookshelves and such in there so it can be anything from "extra work space" to "spillover food storage" to "let me put those packages here so I don't forget to mail them" to what have you. I've been thinking of including a mini chest freezer as part of the things I get there.
That would also allow me to spring for the family-size meat packages at the supermarket, re-pack them individually and chuck them in the freezer for long-term single-diner dinners. I'd do that today but the freezer is crammed with all the other stuff currently vying for space...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:22 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
They are hard to find, but Danby makes a mini stand-alone upright freezer and I have one. It is largish for a dorm fridge. I prefer it to a mini chest freezer because I can store stuff on top of it but still get at the contents. I used to have it in a nook in the laundry room with shelves above it and in the new apartment it is just in the other side of the wall from the kitchen in my home office and has a few boxes of art and mailing supplies on top of it. If you decide to get an extra freezer, you might like one like that because it just consumes less useful space.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:37 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:37 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
I agree with jacquilynne -- if you can find one, and if the sizing works out, I have found that upright freezers are much easier to use than a chest freezer, where you have to dig down like an archeologist to find anything.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:28 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Dip Flash at 7:28 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
When I was in university two of my hippie-ish housemates would load up on discounted fruit and vegetables - far more than they could possibly eat - at the end of the weekly farmer's market, most of which wound up dissolving into a foul slurry in the crisper. Another guy would buy all of his dairy products from a nearby variety store which sold them at a discount because they were always on the verge of expiring. Then they would expire in the fridge. Yet another fellow was fond of buying footlongs from Subway, eating half of them and then leaving the other halves in the fridge until they turned all sorts of alarming colours.
I do not miss sharing a fridge, or anything else, with housemates.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:32 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I do not miss sharing a fridge, or anything else, with housemates.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:32 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
….I never even knew upright freezers were a thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:40 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:40 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
BrotherCaine, grains of paradise are great-- they look like peppercorns, but have a floral/fruit taste with just a little sting.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:56 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:56 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
The problem with our shared freezer is that the young people don't understand the concept of defrosting it. Even when I say I will do it if they only eat all the stuff they put into it, they just don't, contrariwise, every time we are near emptying it, they seem to find a special joy in stocking up the freezer again that is somewhat unusual for their age. There are the usuals, like ice cubes, Ben and Jerrys tubs and frozen pizza. But there is also right now a whole big salmon trout, many bags of dried fish flakes from the Faroe Islands (kept in the freezer to keep the smell down), several game birds and containers with home-made stock, just to name a few things most 21 year olds don't hoard. And then all the ice build up, that makes it more and more difficult to open the drawers or find more space in there.
It's irritating, but not too much. And today I came home tired from a long day to find all the cheeses, seriously, and a stack of freshly made Vietnamese salads from the restaurant where my daughter works.
posted by mumimor at 9:40 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's irritating, but not too much. And today I came home tired from a long day to find all the cheeses, seriously, and a stack of freshly made Vietnamese salads from the restaurant where my daughter works.
posted by mumimor at 9:40 AM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
> I am the one who makes odd new condiments I don’t know how to use, buys aspiration kale for that delicious but difficult dish my mother-in-law taught me, and saves the leftover egg yolks from my latest cooking experiment that used twelve egg whites (homemade angel food cake is delicious and freezes well, it turns out). But he is the one who never throws things out. (Or he takes longer to do so than me anyhow).
Pretty much the same in my house, though my partner will sweep out any past-its-prime food for which he was responsible, like leftovers from dinners he made.
But if I made homemade peanut sauce that was all wrong, HE'D be the one who would be reluctant to toss it, because he would want us to find a way to salvage it. (Look, I try not to waste food, but sometimes I don't wanna salvage a fuck-up, I just want it disappeared.)
posted by desuetude at 10:04 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Pretty much the same in my house, though my partner will sweep out any past-its-prime food for which he was responsible, like leftovers from dinners he made.
But if I made homemade peanut sauce that was all wrong, HE'D be the one who would be reluctant to toss it, because he would want us to find a way to salvage it. (Look, I try not to waste food, but sometimes I don't wanna salvage a fuck-up, I just want it disappeared.)
posted by desuetude at 10:04 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
My husband is the sort of cook who, every time he cooks, picks a recipe, goes to the store, and buys only the exact amount of ingredients necessary, comes home, cooks and eats it. I am the sort of cook who goes to the store and buys cartfuls of all the basics and a scattering of other ingredients for various recipes so that I don't have to go to the store every time I cook.
Our compromise is somewhere in between each of our ways, which means that we have a fully-stuffed fridge and pantry and yet somehow are always missing one or two ingredients for each and every recipe we know, so we still have to go to the store every single time we cook.
posted by telophase at 11:11 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
Our compromise is somewhere in between each of our ways, which means that we have a fully-stuffed fridge and pantry and yet somehow are always missing one or two ingredients for each and every recipe we know, so we still have to go to the store every single time we cook.
posted by telophase at 11:11 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
My wife and I largely agree on how a refrigerator should function, though she's willing to leave things in there for longer than I will. I'm not big on a lot of leftovers so we have some disagreement there when she leaves them for me to eat and I really don't want them.
We're actively planning out how a fridge should function when we own our house and a have a kitchen that we can renovate into whatever we want. In a perfect world we'd have a restaurant fridge with a glass door at home that'd shame us into keeping it tidy, but it looks like the maintenance on commercial fridges is something that we just don't want to do, so we'll get a large standard fridge for the kitchen...
And a project fridge for elsewhere. All the shrubs, preserves, overnight proofs, dry rubbed meat, etc etc etc goes in the project fridge. I'm always envious of people who actually have a shelf free that they can fit a half sheetpan on. I don't think anyone ever has that outside of cooking shows to be honest, but by god we will.
I'm also planning to install the restaurant dated label painter's tape thing so we know exactly how old something is and whether it's ready. There will be a System.
It will be glorious.
posted by mikesch at 11:18 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
We're actively planning out how a fridge should function when we own our house and a have a kitchen that we can renovate into whatever we want. In a perfect world we'd have a restaurant fridge with a glass door at home that'd shame us into keeping it tidy, but it looks like the maintenance on commercial fridges is something that we just don't want to do, so we'll get a large standard fridge for the kitchen...
And a project fridge for elsewhere. All the shrubs, preserves, overnight proofs, dry rubbed meat, etc etc etc goes in the project fridge. I'm always envious of people who actually have a shelf free that they can fit a half sheetpan on. I don't think anyone ever has that outside of cooking shows to be honest, but by god we will.
I'm also planning to install the restaurant dated label painter's tape thing so we know exactly how old something is and whether it's ready. There will be a System.
It will be glorious.
posted by mikesch at 11:18 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm always envious of people who actually have a shelf free that they can fit a half sheetpan on.
There's a kind of joy in finding a way to repack the other contents to free up a shelf for the big rectangular oven dish that's going to keep us all in cold lasagne for the next three days. It's a bit like playing Tetris, except that instead of time being constrained by a rain of falling blocks it's about not leaving the doors yawning open for long enough to matter.
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
There's a kind of joy in finding a way to repack the other contents to free up a shelf for the big rectangular oven dish that's going to keep us all in cold lasagne for the next three days. It's a bit like playing Tetris, except that instead of time being constrained by a rain of falling blocks it's about not leaving the doors yawning open for long enough to matter.
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 AM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
I am saving for the project fridge myself.
For some reason my SO does not appreciate me taking more than 15% of the fridge and freezer space with:
- A multitude of mesophilic and thermophilic dairy cultures (think yoghurt, kefir, viili, skyr).
- Several other types of SCOBYs (kombucha, tíbicos, tepache, vinager)
- Dry and liquid mushroom cultures and spores (from pink oysters and lion's mane to several species of psilocybe).
- Four or five different sourdough starters.
- Dehydrated fungi and rare fruits and veggies (there is a feijoa tree two houses down, I've dehydrated some to make a beer later in the year)
- A library of wild and lab yeasts (from bread and mead to many types of beer)
- Homemade fermented hot sauces (I like to consume them over a 3 month period, to experience the full evolution of flavor and aroma).
Keep in mind that everything is neatly packed an labeled. From properly sealed petri dishes and syringes to multi-bagged and vacuum packed samples.
What my SO does appreciate is eating and drinking the quite frankly delicious beer, bread, pasta sauces, marinades, salads, dressings, distillates and hot sauces that I make.
On the other hand, I take food safety seriously, while my SO thinks that leaving something uncovered on the counter for 18 hours in 35C degree weather is perfectly safe as long as it is then put in the fridge to cool down before eating again in a week or six. I do not touch any leftovers I did not pack, label, and date myself.
Putting this to an internet vote: Is this "crazy experiment" shelf too much for a family fridge? Active stuff in the front, dormant stuff in the cooler in the back.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:26 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
For some reason my SO does not appreciate me taking more than 15% of the fridge and freezer space with:
- A multitude of mesophilic and thermophilic dairy cultures (think yoghurt, kefir, viili, skyr).
- Several other types of SCOBYs (kombucha, tíbicos, tepache, vinager)
- Dry and liquid mushroom cultures and spores (from pink oysters and lion's mane to several species of psilocybe).
- Four or five different sourdough starters.
- Dehydrated fungi and rare fruits and veggies (there is a feijoa tree two houses down, I've dehydrated some to make a beer later in the year)
- A library of wild and lab yeasts (from bread and mead to many types of beer)
- Homemade fermented hot sauces (I like to consume them over a 3 month period, to experience the full evolution of flavor and aroma).
Keep in mind that everything is neatly packed an labeled. From properly sealed petri dishes and syringes to multi-bagged and vacuum packed samples.
What my SO does appreciate is eating and drinking the quite frankly delicious beer, bread, pasta sauces, marinades, salads, dressings, distillates and hot sauces that I make.
On the other hand, I take food safety seriously, while my SO thinks that leaving something uncovered on the counter for 18 hours in 35C degree weather is perfectly safe as long as it is then put in the fridge to cool down before eating again in a week or six. I do not touch any leftovers I did not pack, label, and date myself.
Putting this to an internet vote: Is this "crazy experiment" shelf too much for a family fridge? Active stuff in the front, dormant stuff in the cooler in the back.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:26 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Hehe, Dr. Curare, you are insane, but in the best possible way :-)
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
We bought a second small fridge just to handle the biweekly delivery of organic veggies. It has made life better.
posted by jokeefe at 1:19 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jokeefe at 1:19 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
soy sauce doesn't need to be refrigerated.
Neither does fish sauce, oyster sauce, chili sauce, steak sauce, most of those pastes, mayo (unless it's homemade), or any of the jams if they'll be consumed within a few weeks (unless it's sugar free or something, otherwise the sugar is the preservative).
Spoken like someone who doesn't live in a rental with an ant problem. An eternal, unrelenting, yes-we've-used-every-trap-and-had-them-professionally-exterminated ant problem.
posted by ApathyGirl at 1:44 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Neither does fish sauce, oyster sauce, chili sauce, steak sauce, most of those pastes, mayo (unless it's homemade), or any of the jams if they'll be consumed within a few weeks (unless it's sugar free or something, otherwise the sugar is the preservative).
Spoken like someone who doesn't live in a rental with an ant problem. An eternal, unrelenting, yes-we've-used-every-trap-and-had-them-professionally-exterminated ant problem.
posted by ApathyGirl at 1:44 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
An ex had this thing where when he cooked, he would have to use all of a given perishable ingredient in one item. All, despite us typically shopping for 2-3 weeks' worth of groceries with no in-between shopping Allowed Because It's Outside The Routine.
Doesn't seem so bad when many pounds of onions disappear into onion jam (yummy and versatile), right? It gets weird when you end up with 36 eggs' worth of egg salad for two people, or when there's no oatmeal for breakfast because it's all in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Can we use the tofu for more than one thing? Nope. How about the tubs of yogurt? Nope, not those either; why would you want to anyway?
This is a way of freeing up fridge space, but not one I can recommend.
posted by blerghamot at 2:14 PM on August 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
Doesn't seem so bad when many pounds of onions disappear into onion jam (yummy and versatile), right? It gets weird when you end up with 36 eggs' worth of egg salad for two people, or when there's no oatmeal for breakfast because it's all in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Can we use the tofu for more than one thing? Nope. How about the tubs of yogurt? Nope, not those either; why would you want to anyway?
This is a way of freeing up fridge space, but not one I can recommend.
posted by blerghamot at 2:14 PM on August 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
Spoken like someone who doesn't live in a rental with an ant problem.
It is all a question of perspective. I turned my ant problem into an ant hobby and have never been happier.
I understand finding ants gross, but typical house ants pose no health hazard, keep other pests under control, and clean places you don't even know are dirty.
Two years ago I started keeping ants of 4 different genera: Campanotus, Pogonomyrmex, Tetramorium and Monomorium.
The Tetramoriums _love_ sweets. We had children over for a birthday party and they managed to drive cake frosting and other foodstuff into the weave of some nice woven chairs we have. After spending 40 minutes and failing to clean even one of the chairs, I just moved the Tetramorium formicarium next to the chairs and coaxed some workers into finding the food. Two days later the chairs were pristine.
This year I am only keeping Atta sp., this is a picture of a queen with her fungus and her first batch of larvae. I love it that these species, the ant, the 'good' fungus they farm, the 'bad' fungus that infects the good fungus, and the bacteria that the ants use to control the bad fungus have been living in symbiosis for tens of millions of years. Excuse the quality of the picture, I have to use very low light not to stress the queens.
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:18 PM on August 18, 2020 [12 favorites]
It is all a question of perspective. I turned my ant problem into an ant hobby and have never been happier.
I understand finding ants gross, but typical house ants pose no health hazard, keep other pests under control, and clean places you don't even know are dirty.
Two years ago I started keeping ants of 4 different genera: Campanotus, Pogonomyrmex, Tetramorium and Monomorium.
The Tetramoriums _love_ sweets. We had children over for a birthday party and they managed to drive cake frosting and other foodstuff into the weave of some nice woven chairs we have. After spending 40 minutes and failing to clean even one of the chairs, I just moved the Tetramorium formicarium next to the chairs and coaxed some workers into finding the food. Two days later the chairs were pristine.
This year I am only keeping Atta sp., this is a picture of a queen with her fungus and her first batch of larvae. I love it that these species, the ant, the 'good' fungus they farm, the 'bad' fungus that infects the good fungus, and the bacteria that the ants use to control the bad fungus have been living in symbiosis for tens of millions of years. Excuse the quality of the picture, I have to use very low light not to stress the queens.
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:18 PM on August 18, 2020 [12 favorites]
also,
We have this weird thing going on with the spice cabinet where we think we're out of something and buy it three times over or think we have it and have zero.
My S.O. makes a St. Patrick's feast every year but otherwise cooks minimally, and I'm pretty sure there are at least four jars of powdered ginger, red pepper flakes, and dry mustard, because he just buys new supplies every year.
Don't even get me started on dry goods, beans, forty three assorted herbal teas, two pounds of loose leaf black tea, fifteen kinds of flour minimum, etc...
[x] I am in this photo and I don't like it.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:23 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
We have this weird thing going on with the spice cabinet where we think we're out of something and buy it three times over or think we have it and have zero.
My S.O. makes a St. Patrick's feast every year but otherwise cooks minimally, and I'm pretty sure there are at least four jars of powdered ginger, red pepper flakes, and dry mustard, because he just buys new supplies every year.
Don't even get me started on dry goods, beans, forty three assorted herbal teas, two pounds of loose leaf black tea, fifteen kinds of flour minimum, etc...
[x] I am in this photo and I don't like it.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:23 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Putting this to an internet vote: Is this "crazy experiment" shelf too much for a family fridge? Active stuff in the front, dormant stuff in the cooler in the back.
😳Let us do a spouse swap, you and my husband are made for each other.
posted by charmedimsure at 2:56 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
😳Let us do a spouse swap, you and my husband are made for each other.
posted by charmedimsure at 2:56 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
It is all a question of perspective. I turned my ant problem into an ant hobby and have never been happier.
I understand finding ants gross, but typical house ants pose no health hazard, keep other pests under control, and clean places you don't even know are dirty.
Hey now, no-one used the g-word, and I would consider myself a Friend to non-human creatures that I share space with. It's just that.. there are so many of them, and they have no regard for personal space and really, a home can only support one full-time sugar addict and I'm the one buying the fancy snacks. It's a big enough problem where we are that the HOA regularly treats the exterior walls to minimize the colonization process. I'm fairly certain that at this point, the are part of the structural integrity of the townhome and also the cause of the shitty wifi penetration by measure of sheer biomass in the walls.
If I were in a freestanding house, I would absolutely try and work with them in the way you have. But when they're desperate enough to mount an expedition to the toilets, like no. I can't.
posted by ApathyGirl at 3:25 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I understand finding ants gross, but typical house ants pose no health hazard, keep other pests under control, and clean places you don't even know are dirty.
Hey now, no-one used the g-word, and I would consider myself a Friend to non-human creatures that I share space with. It's just that.. there are so many of them, and they have no regard for personal space and really, a home can only support one full-time sugar addict and I'm the one buying the fancy snacks. It's a big enough problem where we are that the HOA regularly treats the exterior walls to minimize the colonization process. I'm fairly certain that at this point, the are part of the structural integrity of the townhome and also the cause of the shitty wifi penetration by measure of sheer biomass in the walls.
If I were in a freestanding house, I would absolutely try and work with them in the way you have. But when they're desperate enough to mount an expedition to the toilets, like no. I can't.
posted by ApathyGirl at 3:25 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm also planning to install the restaurant dated label painter's tape thing so we know exactly how old something is and whether it's ready. There will be a System.
It will be glorious.
Any system that doesn't include pint and quart deli containers is incomplete.
posted by mikelieman at 3:40 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
It will be glorious.
Any system that doesn't include pint and quart deli containers is incomplete.
posted by mikelieman at 3:40 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
The fridge in our house is small yet my husband buys mayo from Costco..
However. We built a garage and like all good garage owners have a garage fridge. It holds beer and wine for us, and in the freezer compartment, popsicles for the kids, and meat we will grill (and veggie burgers for me)
It had made for domestic peace.
posted by biggreenplant at 4:06 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
However. We built a garage and like all good garage owners have a garage fridge. It holds beer and wine for us, and in the freezer compartment, popsicles for the kids, and meat we will grill (and veggie burgers for me)
It had made for domestic peace.
posted by biggreenplant at 4:06 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
😳Let us do a spouse swap, you and my husband are made for each other.
Sorry, tried it before, it did not work.
Positive feedback loop where maxing the credit cards to get a laminar flow hood with 99.9995% efficiency at 0.1 – 0.2 µm starts making sense.
posted by Dr. Curare at 4:23 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Sorry, tried it before, it did not work.
Positive feedback loop where maxing the credit cards to get a laminar flow hood with 99.9995% efficiency at 0.1 – 0.2 µm starts making sense.
posted by Dr. Curare at 4:23 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
you know what after sitting in this thread a bit I think I'm just gonna get takeout for everything forever
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:50 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:50 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Going to the kitchen right now. Will pickle some carrots. Could also make sauerkraut. There's still space in that fridge and she's not awake yet.
posted by Namlit at 10:36 PM on August 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Namlit at 10:36 PM on August 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
Absolute yes to organizer bins for the fridge. I have found a bunch from mDesign that I really like, including a lazy susan for the top shelf, as mentioned previously. Plus multiple fridge-depth bins that I can slide out as needed, keeping everything accessible so nothing gets lost in the back forever.
Also, I splurged on a French door fridge with the freezer on the bottom. Will never go back to freezer on top and the associated squatting to dig around in produce drawers on the bottom. How did we live like that for so long?
posted by ktkt at 8:40 AM on August 19, 2020 [2 favorites]
Also, I splurged on a French door fridge with the freezer on the bottom. Will never go back to freezer on top and the associated squatting to dig around in produce drawers on the bottom. How did we live like that for so long?
posted by ktkt at 8:40 AM on August 19, 2020 [2 favorites]
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posted by Fukiyama at 9:48 AM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]