Where Bar Fruit Goes To Die

One of the more disagreeable tasks in the kitchen has to be cleaning the crisper drawer. And that is because you never know what's lurking down there, what kind of squishy, putrid mess is sloshing around underneath the lettuce.

To my mind, crisper drawers are a bad idea, especially the big, deep ones we have that seem to invite a jumble of items, exactly the kind of environment where little bits of things can be quickly stashed, then forgotten, only to make a home for one kind of mold or another when nobody is paying attention. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of order. What I try to do is keep things organized in Ziploc bags.

I knew it was time to bite the bullet and empty the crisper drawer when I noticed not one, not two, but three separate bags of grapes flopping around in there. This is what I found:

2 fairly old knobs of ginger
1/2 yellow onion, bagged
2 old limes
An open bag of carrots
A small bag of arugula from the CSA, weeks past its prime
4 grapefruit of various sizes
4 oranges
2 clementines, one partially peeled
2 giant radishes from the CSA box before Christmas
A piece of horseradish
1 head broccoli
A Ziploc bag containing 2 cooked fingerling potatoes and a small handful of cooked edamame, at least two weeks old
A fennel bulb
3 bags of grapes, one contiaining just six grapes
3 loose grapes

Unhygenically, there is also half a stewing chicken that arrived in the CSA box Thursday. (It was a whole chicken, but we split our share with friends Helen and Jeff.) Uncooked poultry really shouldn't be stashed with fruits and vegetables. But we are making the food for a friend's birthday party: The rest of the refrigerator is stuffed.

Fridge Overload

It seems like we haven't been to the grocery in weeks, yet after holiday meals and holiday parties, the refrigerator is groaning with food.

At a certain point, it's hard to tell what's in there. I set up a folding table in the kitchen and began to unload, sort through, rearrange, throw out (gasp...we hate to throw out food), and generally conduct some reconnaissance on the situation.

Here are the contents of the top two shelves where leftovers seem to accumulate most. I'll skip the commentary and just list them for you:

Several old pieces of lemon and limes
A 2-cup container of lemon and lime wedges
Some mouldy black beans
Cooked greens past their prime
A carry-out container of Chinese green beans, another of white rice
A very ripe persimmon
Two cups of cooked steel-cut outs
A Ziploc bag of fresh salad greens
Two cups of braised green cabbage
A 2-cup container of turkey hash
A 1-cup container of cooked brown Basmati rice
A 1-cup container of mouldering cooked sweet potatoes
A 1-cup container, half full, of Thanksgiving gravy
A half-full container of Egg Beater
A 4-cup container, half full, of braised red cabbage
A 2-cup container of pesto sauce
A 1-cup container, half full, of unidentified brown sauce
A small amount of sage mayonnaise
Two cups of bread pudding custard mix
A 4-cup container, half full, of cooked cranberry beans
A quart container, mostly empty, of apple cider
A trace amount of heavy cream (which I emptied into another container of half-and-half)
A small baggie of cooked carrots
A quart container, partially filled, of pomegranate juice
An 8-cup container, about one-third full, of chicken broth
An 8-cup container of turkey broth
Another 8-cup container, about two-thirds full, of another turkey broth
Two containers of lard
A 1-cup container of peanut butter butter cream
A 4-cup container of cooked Brussels sprouts
A trace amount of Chesapeake tartar sauce for crab cakes
A 2-cup container, about half full, of maple mustard
A 2-cup container of cooked slices of acorn squash
A 2-cup container of cooked purple potatoes
A 2-cup container, partially used, of low-fat cottage cheese
A 4-cup container, about half full, of cranberry relish
A large Ziploc bag containing a small amount of fresh bread crumbs
Two cups of cooked pasta noodles
A 4-cup container of radishes in water
A large Ziploc bag of white turkey meat
A large Ziploc bag of dark turkey meat
A large Ziploc bag of roasted ham
An 8-cup container, about half full, of chicken stew
One bunch of dill, wrapped in a moist paper towel inside a large Ziploc bag
A bottle of homemade ketchup, partially used
On open jar of roasted red peppers
One partially eaten/licked candy cane, half-wrapped in its original plastic
A very small slice of vegetable lasagna

We proceeded to eat for dinner the cooked squash, some of the red cabbage, the purple potatoes, some of the Chinese green beans and a handful of white rice. However, when we tried to serve out 8-year-old daughter a few of the carrots, she threw a fit and shut herself into a room upstairs to cry inconsolably, saying we (I) knew she didn't like carrots and why were we serving them for dinner.

Ah, parenthood.