Produce Drawer of Death or "I Need A New Fridge"!

So it's the holiday season.

 

And that means guests. 

 

Which means cleaning. 

 

Not just cleaning. 

 

CLEANING. 

 

As in everything.

 

As in all three bathrooms:

• The medicine cabinets. (You know people open your medicine cabinets).
• The mold and mildew in the shower. (You know they look at that too - I don't know why, but they do).
• The toilets. Including under the lid. (The boys in my life should understand this is a place some people will see).
• The ritual placing of the fake towels. (The ones no one in the family ever uses so they'll look nice for "company". And the "company" thinks they are also too nice to use so they sneakily wipe their hands on the shower curtain).

There's the moving of all the furniture when you vacuum because someone might actually change the position of a chair and discover what’s lurking under there much of the year.

 

And then the doors, door frames, light switches, and kitchen cabinet knobs that apparently have not been cleaned since last Christmas.

 

It's amazing how much grime builds up in all these places without my noticing. When I suddenly become aware of it I am stunned at its obviousness and our slovenliness.

 

Eventually our cleaning journey takes us to the inside of the refrigerator.

 

Yes the inside of the refrigerator.

 

Because not only is this the time of year for many guests, it's the time of year for many guests to help you.

 

They will be in the kitchen helping get food on the table and fetching things in and out of the fridge for you.

 

If you have not cleaned out that fridge, THIS is the moment of truth.

 

The moment when your friends come face to face with death.

Dead soup, dead bowls of spaghetti, dead half eaten yogurts, dead crystallized jam, dead Chinese take-out, and dead produce.

Many of the departed consist of optimistically placed leftovers.

 

You’d think, after 25 years, I would know which types of extra foods will actually get eaten and which are doomed to become a ritualistic sacrifice to the refrigerator gods. Yet I continue to put the supper bits in there blithely assuming they’ll turn magically into lunches.

 

Deceased leftovers represent a failure of portion planning.

Dead produce, however, represents a bigger failure.

A failure in a quest for healthy eating.

Salads never made, vegetables never served for dinner, oranges that, while they looked juicy at the store, have turned out to be little rind covered balls of sawdust.

I really do try.

Every trip to the grocery store sees me buying fresh fruits and veggies and filled with the optimism that we will consume every bit of them.

So where does it all break down?

I blame the produce drawer of death.

First of all, there are two drawers - one that says “moist cold” and one that says “vegetables and fruit”.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what is supposed to go into the “moist cold” one if it isn’t vegetables and fruit.

Secondly, the drawers are tinted like sunglasses. Meaning you cannot clearly see what is going on in there. Unless you open them constantly, stuff is pretty sure to be going round the bend.

Thirdly, the produce drawers are all the way at the bottom. I practically have to get down on my hands and knees to even get access to them.

Talk about out of sight out of mind.

So what I need is...

Drumroll please...

A new refrigerator that has the produce drawers right smack dab at eye level.

With clear plastic that one can actually see through.

I am absolutely, stupendously sure that this will solve all of my fridge death problems and we will eat healthy evermore.

And, I won’t have to clean the fridge this year for company.

Are you listening, dear?

 

Epilogue:

A year has come and gone since I wrote that and I still have my cruddy old fridge and yes, I still plan to clean it before my big Christmas Party. I got started in a small way tonight. When I opened my produce drawers, this is what I found:

Tonight, funeral services were conducted for two heads of lettuce, some grapes, green onions and a desiccated lemon.

These grapes are both dried up and moldy - pick your poison...

I assure you, this lettuce smells every bit as delicious as it looks.....

This poor lettuce never even made it out of the plastic wrap....

My husband swears that, as I stroll through the produce aisle at the store, all the fruits and vegetables recoil in horror when they see me coming. Like the little fish killier girl in "Finding Nemo" 

Sigh.

New Years' Resolution number one: stopping killing lettuces.

Comments

[KatieJ]

Hi! I am a friend of Julie Buzzelli's :) Great column. I want to warn you that the produce drawers draw their death power through name only. In our "cold moist" drawer is an amazing variety of cheeses that are regularly consumed! Our Veggie drawer, on the other hand, is a drawer of death...not helped by the clear plastic...

Great fun to read!