Hedonia

What's in a fridge?

Thanks to Sam, everyone is gleefully exposing the unedited contents of their fridge. When I presented this notion to DPaul, his first question was, can we clean it out first? The answer is, of course, no.

Taking this photo was an amusing challenge, as our door does not stay open on its own. So in order to get enough distance to include both the fridge's innards and the open door, I had to brace myself against the opposite counter, propping the door open with my right toes in some tortured form of kitchen yoga.

I opted not to show the contents of the freezer because, well, it needs to be cleaned out. As we have a bottom-mounted freezer, the view is directly down, and looks like nothing more than a jumble of freezer bags. You can't even see the ice cream maker attachment, waiting for its chance to whip up some frozen treat.

In reviewing the contents of the fridge, I surprised myself at just how many things in the immediate range of visibility are not food for us, but for Reese. Spoiled much? I'm also a little surprised that there is not one bottle of wine, sparkling or beer in there. Certainly an anomaly.

For the fully annotated tour of our fridge, visit the Flickr page.

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One year ago today ... I strolled through Mission Bay, and enjoyed a refreshing mint julep.

No nukes!

This weekend marks our two-year anniversary in our place in Noe Valley. By extension it also marks our two-year anniversary without a microwave. Oddly, despite upgrading to a larger kitchen with a significant amount of counter space, we simply never reintroduced a microwave into our lives.

Our previous microwave I bought in 1989 off a coworker at the Santa Fe Opera at the end of the summer. She had gotten it just to use during the summer season, and didn't need to truck a whole new microwave back home for the rest of the year. By the time we left our old place in 2004, that nuker owed us nothing.

When I tell people how long we've gone without, I inevitably get looks of shock, awe, even disgust. The thing is, I don't miss the mike at all. As far as I'm concerned, microwaves are only good for a couple of things to begin with -- melting butter, reheating coffee and making popcorn. But I am perfectly happy melting butter over the stove in a metal measuring cup; I drink espresso; and I don't especially like popcorn. I've even become quite adept at reheating all manner of leftovers on the stovetop. It's just not worth taking up the space.

Perhaps ironically, the one appliance I do see the potential use for is a toaster oven. Our oven is amazing, but it's also 36" wide and cast iron. It takes upwards of 30 minutes, and probably about $30 of natural gas, to warm up. So I only really turn it on when I am actually cooking, not just warming up. Hmmm ... who makes toaster ovens in red?

Related: I am not alone in nukelessness. According to Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen, approximately 15% of their readers don't own microwaves, either.