Today was a grand occasion. Well, grand in the sense that this occasion only happens rarely. I cleaned my refrigerator. We all have the experience of science projects that we have left a little too long, incubating in the back of the fridge for the time that we need something quick to eat, or for the time we might need that little bit of mashed potatoes for Shepherd’s Pie that we might make next week. You know how it is. You have been there too.
Dated items present big problems. I have a son who is a date fanatic. Before he opens anything from my cabinets, he checks the dates. I know there is a problem when the box goes back where he found it. He checks the dates on the ketchup, milk, and salad dressing, and then makes a big deal about how he can’t use that item because he could get sick from it. To be fair, I have a history of buying things just in case I need them, but then the time never comes.
So, the fridge needed cleaning, and since I had nothing else to do, I tackled this task. I began with the crisper drawers in which I found nothing crisp. A cucumber, basically soup, was hiding under a bag of lettuce and a bag of carrots. Cleaning the shelves was not a big deal. That just involved rearranging some items and throwing out leftover guacamole and chicken salad that I decided I did not want to eat.
The real challenge came when I tried to empty the shelves on the door. I have a lot of condiments. At one point, I discovered that the caramel sauce had leaked onto the shelf and now the ketchup bottle was stuck in about a half an inch of caramel. Fish sauce, oyster sauce, Tastefully Simple Chipotle marinade, Cattleman’s Barbecue, Pampered Chef Thai Peanut Sauce, and three bottles of salad dressing…down the drain.
I’m one person with a fridge of condiments. It’s crazy. I use a few drops and store them, but alas, the expiration date passes and my son is gagging because he is going to get sick if he uses the barbecue that is one week past the sell-by date.
Mustard. I have six kinds of mustard in my clean fridge: Dijon, yellow, spicy, whiskey, full-grain, Southwest. The honey mustard had to go because the expired date was 2014. What? Does mustard go bad?
Salad dressing is a must-have in the kitchen. I use it for salad and to marinade meat and vegetables, but I guess the vinegar in the salad dressing does not act as a long term preservative.
So, yes. Today, my refrigerator is clean and has only fresh or freshly-opened items in it… except for the leftover eggplant parmesan from Maggiano’s. It’s a vicious cycle.
Enjoy your blog… Can’t help but think that there’s a spiritual lesson in cleaning the frig out too. Since I’m not a writer, I’ll let you ponder it. Love what you’re doing.
Many spiritual lessons come to mind. Perhaps this example will suffice. As I was cleaning out the back of the fridge, I found a package of feta cheese that I had not opened, but it was molding. Sadly. Sometimes, we gain some new enlightenment from our personal Bible reading or from a message during a church service, and we tuck it away for future pondering. We forget it is there because it is hidden behind all the daily things we need to think about. At some point in time, we reach back for that nugget of truth, but it has lost its freshness and we can’t remember what point it made in our lives. We just know we liked it when we heard it. That’s sort of like the feta cheese. I like it. When I bought it, I imagined how good it would taste on a salad or in eggs, but I forgot it was there, and now it has lost its freshness. Here, the analogy breaks down (pardon the pun) because the Word never gets stale. How’s that?
I want to know which teacher taught them to read dates. I have one or two kids that drive me crazy on that subject.
Truth! That certain someone tends to look at the dates of anything I put on the table. It’s a little annoying. We were on the poor side of things when I was growing up, and we were glad to have English muffins, even if they were out of date.
I did not hear about any chocolate cake going out. Tell him there good for at least a week.
Oh Ralph. You are a stitch. No, I did not throw out the cake because there was no cake. Sadly. I love cake.