No carrots were harmed in the writing of this post

Anyone remember those old commercials for Easy-Off Oven Cleaner where a woman is sunning herself on the beach with a book or working a crossword puzzle and then looks directly at the camera and says, "I'm cleaning my oven right now"? (Because the spray-on stuff was busy dissolving the last traces of enchilada splatter from the interior of her oven.)  I could have starred in one of those advertisements today because, while I was busy writing and driving to the cleaners and the gym, I was also--apparently-- making soup. AND I was making that soup in my refrigerator. It was cold and made of vegetables. Many kinds of vegetables. Sounds deliciously gourmet, no?

Unfortunately, I was unaware that I was creating said soup until I opened my refrigerator and tried to find a place to put my bags of salad. I pushed aside the leftover Shepherd's Pie and the quiche I made Tuesday night. The yogurt and the cheese and the four gallons of milk. Still, I could not create enough space for my salad bags and so, as a last resort I pulled open the drawer of the rotter crisper where I never, ever think to put anything only to discover that I had indeed been storing plastic bags of cilantro, celery, green onions, green and red peppers and mushrooms. Unfortunately, none of the above were technically recognizable as the items I had obviously purchased weeks? months? ago and shoved into the darkened maw of the COMPARTMENT WHERE CORN GOES TO DIE. Based on the blue fuzz peeking from the plastic, it was clear some of them hadn't shaved in weeks, though I promise I'm not judging. It was probably pretty gruesome...you know...there at the end.  But I now realize that I did put them there and after lonely days in the dark they sort of collapsed into themselves and marinated together...separated only by the thin plastic bags containing them...and then eventually leaking into a chilly, gray pool in the bottom of the drawer. Soup anyone?

Oh...the shame.

I'm a busy woman, internets. A busy woman who, as I've written here before, spends many (hundreds! thousands!millio never mind) hours every week buying food and whatnot for the family only to return again and again to the same place to purchase the same food over and over. It gets old, you know? Sure, I have lofty goals of forcing my family to eat more vegetables and, toward that end, I buy stuff. Green stuff. And I put it into the rotter crisper for it's own good (to keep things fresh and...uh...you know....crispy) and then...I forget about it. I blame myself.

I also blame the fact that our refrigerator hasn't had a light in it in over year. No, I'm not too lazy to change the bulb. There is, in fact, no bulb. Not since it sort of exploded one day and shot sparks everywhere and then made a smoky, burning kind of smell that was pretty awful.

And then it went away so everything was back to normal. Only...darker.

In the meantime, I manage just fine. I've learned to locate things by feel (I saw "The Miracle Worker" twice!) and that's working for me okay. I know the big white things are gallons of milk and the long, styrofoam containers have eggs in them and, of course, I know exactly where the wine is. In a pinch,  I turn on the kitchen light I can still see everything stored in the very front of the refrigerator, and if I need to I can grab a stick and rattle stuff around in the back until something spills and identifies itself.

After opening my refrigerator door at Christmas, my youngest sister (whose need for order is so obsessive compulsive acute that I suspect she alphabetizes her Pop-Tarts...or possibly...groups them into fruit families) surveyed the devastation and said, "Hey, you need a new refrigerator."  A mild understatement, I admit.

Yes. Yes, I do.  Either that or tougher vegetables. But I'm surviving here in the dark just fine. Besides...I have it on good authority that I do some of my best work there. I'm just sayin'.

Comments

[The Fat Lady Sings]

My sympathy groan squeezed itself out by the end of your first paragraph, honey. See - we have one of those double-door, narrow DEEP refrigerators. You know - the kind where you not only cannot see what's in the back; you cannot manage to reach in and retrieve it either. The ends of bread usually migrate back there - or the half empty jars of jam and maraschino cherries. My husband loves maraschino cherries - so he buys them, opens them, retrieves 4 or 5, and promptly forgets they are there until the next time when each cherry is covered with grey, fluffy spore-like tendrils reaching up towards my pink and green moldy oatmeal. You see - I like the steel-cut kind that you have to cook for at least 2 hours or risk snapping a tooth. So I make an entire pot full, indulge my oat craving, then put the left-over in the refrigerator, promptly forgetting until my hubby goes searching for his maraschino cherries and points it out. It's a vicious circle - and not the fun, Algonquin kind either. Ah well. It’s the weekend. Time to see if those carrots and celery I bought to make chicken soup over CHRISTMAS have managed to survive – or if they have morphed into baggies of orange and light green ooze. This time my sympathy groan is tempered with a heartfelt sigh.

[mad muthas]

i am a scientist. i mean, i must be. a microbiologist, probably, because in the depths of my fridge new life forms are spawning. it's so thrilling in there, i can hardly bring myself to open the door. i'll invite you to the nobel prize awards dinner, once my genius has been recognised by the rest of the world.

[anne]

Amen, sister!
I am with you every stip of the way even down to the bag of cilantro which I think I bought a week or two (or three) ago to make some kind of vegetarian meal that never actually materialized. It looked so easy in Vegetarian Times.

[dodo]

your fridge's long lost twin is at my house - it need not be lonely, they could send postcards!

[V-Grrrl]

I have gravy, left over from Christmas, in a container in my refrigerator right now. Every time I was ready to throw it away, I worried about it clogging my drain but I didn't want to put it in the trash bag either because it might stink and ewwww.

Refrigerators in Belgium are SMALL, so I can't put much in them. Good thing.

[Cover Your Mouth]

My crisper also tends to be a vegetable graveyard. I go to the grocery store feeling optimistic, buying lots and lots of fresh produce and in the end, those veggies have been harvested and given their lives to die a slow, agonizing and smelly death in my fridge.

[Jay]

You crack me up!

Maybe you could put on one of those headbands with a light on it like Peggy Hill uses to read in bed in "King fo the Hill". It would light up whatever you looking at in your fridge.

Also, you are the reason they make clear crisper drawers now. ;-)

[Kristen]

Ugh. Our crisper has been a scientific lab before, too. And we're just as bad about buying vegetables and forgetting to eat them. SIGH. That's awful...and yet I don't see it changing anytime soon!

[monica]

The bag of liquid cilantro! ah yes... I try to limit the veggie drawer contents to potatoes and citrus. mmmm... starch + margaritas!

breakfast of champions.

[Mrs. Harridan]

Very funny post! I can so relate. I love that you call the crisper the rotter - much more accurate.

After sacrificing many, many vegetables to the Fridge Gods, I have found that one thing that extends the lives of the fresh, bunchy herb-types is to give them a rinse, shake them to remove excess water, then roll in a paper towel and put the whole thing into a ziploc bag. Then they might last a week and a half instead of 4 days. Of course, often, even after a week and a half I still don't use them, so ...

[Nils]

Hilarious.

We have a chest freezer, where we dutifully put leftover spaghetti sauce, lasagna, gravy, soup ... there it mummifies until we do a yearly cleanout, at which point all the labels have fallen off and nothing can be identified. So really, the freezer is just a staging area between the counter and the compost bins. (whew - good thing I proofread - left the "o" out of "counter".)

I'm pretty good at keeping ahead of the fridge. My mantra: "There is no known food that is royal blue."

[Jonathon]

Argh! Unintentional vegetable soup. I totally cringed in empathy!

[toyfoto]

Mine (refrigerator) has done it to me on purpose. It's made soup out of ice cream without my help as well as soup out of lettuce.

Maybe I should hire it out to a trendy restaurant that specializes in scientific fusion foods.

[platypus]

Oh I'm so with you there! My fridge is exactly the same. I also do the same as Nils and lose things in the freezer too...

[Tink]

My Dad used to keep a fridge full of fuzzy food and ancient leftovers. I thought maybe he was creating science experiments... or fertilizer for his pot. But noooo. The truth was, he left it all there because it made his fridge LOOK full. Since it LOOKED full it must BE full and therefore he didn't have to buy groceries. I kid you not. That was his fuzzy logic behind the fuzzy food. SO GROSS.

[shelley]

One of your finest posts. I salute you and your refrigerator soup!

[clickmom]

LOL, I am sitting here reading weblogs for an hour and yet, I know that should I reach beind me and open that fridge door, the odor of decaying produce would singe my eyebrows and melt off my partially acrylic sweater.

oh well....

[Oh, The Joys]

"The Rotter" is a perfect name for that drawer and the one here is newly named such in your honor.

[CircusKelli]

I say, to hell with the vegetables. Don't buy them any more. If they can't last in your crisper more than a few months without becoming fuzzy and soggy and unidentifiable, to HELL with them! YOU SHOW THOSE VEGETABLES! Buy things like little tubs of frosting and pudding and make jello! Put those all in your refrigerator! (along with milk and maybe orange juice if you must.) You won't be able to even keep those things in there because they will leap right out and into the hands of your family! WHY, I say, keep those poor, pathetic, putrid vegetables around if they're going to turn all nasty and sour...?

[Gina]

I tend to go frozen veggies, for that exact reason. Of course, we do have lots of fresh fruit and some regular veggies.

The way I have found to keep the rotter from becoming the place that makes soup is to buy a fridge with the freezer on the bottom. That way, when you open up the fridge, everything is pretty much at eye level, and the rotter is only at waist level instead of down by your feet. I love, love my fridge.

[jen]

hmmm.
when all else fails, you can make one hell of a compost.

we have the same problem, although not quite as large.

4 gallons of milk? wow. my calcified heroine.

[Ian]

Ever hear George Carlin's "Icebox Man"?

Sounds right up your alley.

Ian

[Ortizzle]

LOL. A friend of mine used to have a great acronym for the "Veggie Rotter." He called it the M.C.U., or "Mold Cultivation Unit."

This post has made my day, in any case. I am no longer embarrassed that last week I discovered several little tupperware containers from Christmastime in the crypt of my fridge... representing every color of the rainbow. And so NOT anybody's nice pot of stew. :-)

[Occidental Girl]

The "rotter" indeed! Oh, man, what an experience. Usually a certain aroma signals the onset of refrigerator soup, which I ignore for a day because I know what lies ahead....ugh!

[Mignon]

Your eggs come in styrofoam? Only in Texas, I guess.