Refrigerator triage

Post #441,804 by rcareaga 7/9/22 11:10:45 PM 7/9/22 11:10:45 PM Reply	Refrigerator triage The spousette regards herself as the autocrat of the household generally and of the kitchen specifically. She has also long held—she denies this, but the evidence is incontrovertible—that any storage space left unused short of 100% is storage space wasted, my repeated observations that storage filled to capacity renders most of its contents inaccessible notwithstanding. She has applied this philosophy to the refrigerator (I grew up calling this domestic convenience the “icebox,” because the pre-electric technology was what both my parents remembered from their own childhoods) with the result that, for example, the two produce drawers are difficult to close, and periodically have to be emptied of their rotted contents. We waste a lot of food. This afternoon, wifey being confined helplessly to bed, I emptied the appliance and filled three shopping bags full of superannuated contents: produce, of course; leftover meals in small plastic tubs running to mold; condiments in jars with “sell-by” dates going back as far as fifteen years (as a patriotic Northern Californian I of course rinsed the jars for recycling, although this required water—oops!). Anyway, for a while the interior, scrubbed and with over half its former contents removed, will present a much more salubrious appearance, and its remaining contents are visible, passably organized, and accessible. So there’s that. cordially,
Post #441,805 by Andrew Grygus 7/10/22 12:24:52 AM 7/10/22 12:24:52 AM Reply	My fridge is jammed to the gills . . . . . including its freezer compartment - but nothing is over useful age. I have to continuously monitor it to make room for new stuff.
Post #441,806 by crazy 7/10/22 4:18:08 AM 7/10/22 4:18:08 AM Reply	Refrigerators need air flow. Freezers should be packed. Get another refrigerator. That's what I did. M has something along those lines. She grew up poor. Don't you dare throw out something that you can eat. Don't you dare throw out something that has been sitting out on the counter rotting all day and then thrown back into the refrigerator. 3/4 of what she can eat will kill me.
Post #441,807 by boxley 7/10/22 10:07:36 PM 7/10/22 10:07:36 PM Reply	my youngest kid is 25, none of them in their lifetimes ever ate anything left over from a meal they all persist in putting leftovers in the refrigerator when they are over here. go figure "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #441,810 by Andrew Grygus 7/11/22 12:29:57 AM 7/11/22 12:29:57 AM Reply	I practically live on leftovers. In my cooking adventures, I do full recipes, but there's only me to eat them, and I'm not big on wasting good food. One thing I do know is that reheating recipes needs to be done with due care.
Post #441,811 by boxley 7/11/22 8:36:16 AM 7/11/22 8:36:16 AM Reply	now occationally I make a pot of cajun red beans or chili and eat those it is usually better after aging in the refer but that is about it. "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #441,815 by crazy 7/12/22 12:05:18 PM 7/12/22 12:05:18 PM Reply	Yeah, M does these huge recipes She's used to feeding between four and eight people every meal. I'm the master of the two-person meal. I make it for three people so you can chow down hard but it will only leave a small leftover for a snack later. But that's because I start off with sous vide stuff for the most part. So once every couple months I'll do a week of serious cooking and freeze three-person portions. M will fill a refrigerator shelf from the leftovers from a single meal. And I won't eat anything from that after 2 days. And then the next day she will make another meal just as large. And the accumulation will start. And the accumulation never ends. I will age out stuff every week or two. But I have a separate refrigerator downstairs that I can isolate out my stuff without shuffling through the packed fridge.
Post #441,816 by drook 7/12/22 12:48:50 PM 7/12/22 12:48:50 PM Reply	Same here Jenn always cooks like 4 extra people will show up unannounced. If I ask how many people she's cooking for, she'll say, "Someone will eat it for lunch." No. No they won't. You don't eat leftovers. Your mother doesn't eat leftovers. I don't eat lunch. That leaves the 10-year-old, and she didn't like the pork chops and green beans the first time. (OK, that's not fair. The kid loves almost everything we make.) -- Drew
Post #441,817 by CRConrad 7/12/22 4:23:29 PM 7/12/22 4:23:29 PM Reply	What's wtih all this "I don't eat leftovers, you don't eat leftovers" stuff? We've cooked this, it's made from ingredients that cost money, now fucking eat it. No, I'm not fucking cooking anything else until you've eaten up what I already cooked for you. Just eat it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI Fucking Yanks, apparently all made of money... (Well yeah, I was indeed raised by a Schwäbische Hausfrau who grew up in the late 1940s; why do you ask?) -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #441,820 by crazy 7/12/22 8:23:53 PM 7/12/22 8:23:53 PM Reply	Wow that was some trauma And yes of course I was raised like that. And the second I left my mom at age 13 and moved in with my dad. I became responsible for food, shopping and cooking for myself and three other people. Before that moment it was psychological poverty of my mother which then transmitted into dishes like doggie goulash which was a simply hot boiled hot dogs dropped in red sauce with bad boiled potatoes. That was easily representative of anything my mother cooked. It was all bad. My dad was happy to hand me a blank check to go shopping with. Literally. He handed me a blank check which I got to fill out at the cash register. And he explained in great detail that I should not limit myself. We went to the butchers twice a month. And got stacks of center cut filet cut for us right there. If I was at any gathering of any sort and someone tried to put any food before me that I did not want I would politely decline. But if they pushed I push back hard. And then I grew up and had to earn it on my own. Which I did until about 10 years ago and it went back into eat what's put in front of you. Not with any hostility. And M is an incredible cook so she can whip up some wonderful stuff with cheap ingredients. But I know what I would prefer. And right now we can afford some better ingredients. Last night she made asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, then mozzarella cheese, large amounts, melted across it all. I'm very happy picking through these left overs. I've gotten two meals so far out of it today and I'd eat it more but it ran out. Because she only made it as a side dish.
Post #441,821 by boxley 7/12/22 10:09:05 PM 7/12/22 10:09:06 PM Reply	doggie goulash which was a simply hot boiled hot dogs dropped in red sauce with bad boiled potatoes wish I had something that good growing up. My mother had a cooking method that included boiling everything for 3 hours. She "had to boil the goodness out" oh, yeah that it did "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #441,822 by drook 7/12/22 10:17:47 PM 7/12/22 10:17:47 PM Reply	My father liked meat well done My mother would cook a roast until it was the texture of a shoe. I was literally unable to chew it, but want allowed to leave the table until I finished. There was a lot of hiding. -- Drew
Post #441,823 by rcareaga 7/12/22 10:41:16 PM 7/12/22 10:41:16 PM Reply	Re: doggie goulash which was… Getting real close to the Four Yorkshiremen here. cordially,
Post #441,824 by boxley 7/12/22 11:46:20 PM 7/12/22 11:46:20 PM Reply	we was so poor that we gleaned picked out gardens for soup when dad was a wonder bread truck driver we lived on dayolds all week and had boiled fish and potatoes for supper on sunday a sorry ass half dead calf lived in our bath tub filled with straw for a month to stay warm and get over the scours (running shits) In fifth grade wore size 40 ragged dress pants given to us with the bottoms rolled up and twine to hold them around my waist. During the massive long UAW strikes back in the day. have more will fire when ready :-) "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #441,827 by drook 7/13/22 11:02:07 AM 7/13/22 11:02:07 AM Reply	Not me, but my dad My grandfather was a fisherman. I don't think he ever made money doing it, but it's how he fed the family. My father grew up eating so much trout that to the day he died he couldn't stand the smell of fish. And until he was an adult, he thought it was because his dad liked fish. -- Drew
Post #441,825 by crazy 7/13/22 8:25:35 AM 7/13/22 8:25:35 AM Reply	There are poor stories and there are horror stories. I know I don't qualify for either. And I'm very happy about that. I had poor moments. I had horrible moments. But I was incredibly advantaged compared to 99% of the population. And I didn't grow up in the era of local war. That is a totally different story.
Post #441,826 by CRConrad 7/13/22 9:22:08 AM 7/13/22 9:22:08 AM Reply	Four Yorkshiremen? Fucking amateurs, living in luxury on the bottom of a lake.
Post #441,818 by Andrew Grygus 7/12/22 4:32:00 PM 7/12/22 5:02:37 PM Reply	A couple of years ago. A couple of friends arrived from Los Vegas, with only a couple hours notice. They rushed out here to sell a couple of prime cemetery plots they had inherited to some Armenians. Armenians are desperate for prestigious plots in Hollywood Hills and similar locations. The money was good, and financed a trip to England. Not having any prep time, I selected from my refrigerator and carefully reheated. Cooked up some rice to go with it. I apologized that I didn't have time to make anything new. Peggy: Wait! This is how you eat here? This is your leftovers? Me: Well, yes. Peggy: Hell, I'm moving in! P.S. A joke in Armenia is that Armenia is the only country with two Capitals, Yerevan and Glendale, California. Edited by Andrew Grygus July 12, 2022, 05:02:37 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #441,819 by CRConrad 7/12/22 6:23:13 PM 7/12/22 6:23:13 PM Reply	That's definitely one capital too many: The C in "Capital". -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi

Welcome to IWETHEY!