Monday, February 23, 2009
Proof of My Raging OCD
1:07 PM | 
Posted by
Wide Lawns |
I have a confession to make. I am obsessed with looking into other people's refrigerators. I have no idea why. It's the strangest thing. As soon as I walk into someone else's house the first thing I want to do is to go look and see what's in their fridge. Of course, this is strange and you can't really do that most of the time so I'll always find myself looking for a way to sneak a peek. I love when my hosts tell me to get my own drink or when I offer to help with dinner and they ask me to retrieve something from the crisper. I also find myself looking into other people's grocery carts and I always feel like other shoppers are purchasing better foods than I am, so maybe my fridge obsession is something like that. Maybe I'm trying to see if I'm normal or maybe I just love food so much that I hope to make a new, exciting discovery. Perhaps, I'm just nuts. Last year in a writing workshop the teacher told us you can tell a lot about people by the contents of their purses, fridges, cabinets etc. and that we should use those types of things as cues in our writing to make our characters more real. This, I think, is also part of my fridge peeping. I feel like I get to know people through their food. Lately a bunch of other bloggers have posted pictures of the insides of their refrigerators. Naturally I found this very exciting and wanted to get in on the action. Above is my refrigerator. I don't know what you can tell about me from it, except that I have raging OCD. Look at how I line everything up. It drives me insane if things aren't like that. My fridge is pretty much the opposite of Stephanie Klein's. She has a huge, fancy refrigerator that is jam packed with condiments and some big Le Crueset dutch oven thing. Whiskey Marie also posted the contents of her ice box. She had way more stuff than me as well. Recently, Miss Kitty even got a new refrigerator, posting both pictures of the old one and the new one. Very exciting for me. So, look into my refrigerator all you want. Maybe you will learn something about me.
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31 comments:
No beer?
It has wheat!
Love all the hot/chili sauces. But 2 open bottles of sriracha :-) How do you decide which one gets to sit on the shelf instead of in the door?
I also see you're an omnivorous food shopper: Trader Joe's and Whole Paycheck along with Publix. I'm in Chicago and shop Trader Joe's, Stanley's Produce Market and a polish deli for coldcuts and meats.
-lowwall
ROFL I love it! I must have a mild form of OCD as well but I have two fridges to shower it on!
In fact the pictures in the blog post I am linking to are on the front of the fridges in question with lables! No one needs to ask which fridge something is in, ever.
I am currently cooking for a family of 6(and raw feeding my dog Susie) so I need two fridges so I can see what I have.
Link to the insanity: http://mommycass.blogspot.com/2008/10/tale-of-two-fridges.html
An explanation on the sriracha - I accidentally took one from my parents' house because I thought it was mine. I need to return it. The funniest thing is that we dont have Trader Joes here. I got it while I was in Philadelphia over Christmas and brought it home. Whenever I visit TJ's cities I load up.
You're right. I do have a lot of hot sauce. I think it's more my husband. He likes spicy foods a lot.
I also noticed that I don't have any meat or bread.
I see 3 bottles of Siracha.
Oh, also check the expiration date on the heavy cream.
2 srirachas. That one in the back is Louisiana hot sauce. I assure you it is very different. OH MY GOD my heavy cream is expired!!! What was I thinking?? I've been trying to cut back on the fat lately. I will toss it at once, though cream never seems to spoil like milk does.
Yum! I prefer Tabasco over Louisiana sauce(hotter!) but I'm Mexican so I have a high tolerance for spiciness.
I don't have a photo of mine, but I guess if you looked into my fridge you'd notice that I like:
1) Dairy (Two kinds of milk, two 1-liter containers of yogurt, various kinds of cheese and creams, and plenty of eggs).
2) Vegetables and fruit. (Properly washed, cut, and placed in ziploc bags...I'm very OCD about my veggies, I always do the above right after I purchase them...I feel that it makes them last longer and saves time when I cook during the week, because everything's ready to be used.)
I rarely buy any meat, and when I do it's mostly fish and maybe chicken. I'm not a vegetarian, mostly I don't miss meat all that much.
I've also got 2 srirachas, but only because I forgot that we already had one in the fridge.
I've also got 2 Louisiana hot sauces, but that was because my husband went into a completely different store at the exact same moment I did and we both bought hot sauce.
I love fridge peeping.
At least you do not have a whole shelf dedicated to pickles, like I do
we had two bottle of the sriracha somehow (I suspect one showed up at a potluck)
I took one to school.
I should do pics of the home fridge vs/ the school fridge.
The home one suffers from not enought crisper space (why can't hey make a fridge with four crisper drawers) and has bags of carrots and celery stacked next to the big tub o' baby spinach.
The school one (a "dorm fridge") holds lunches in generic tupperware and lot of sugary drinks (essential to high output math thinking) and hydride tapes for the toxic gas monitor.
Whee!
And yeah, I've never seen a fridge with that much whitespace. Let alone the row/column nature of it. You've got problems.
I will never post a picture of my fridge. I haven't seen the back of it for at least a year. I think there's a bottle of ice wine in there somewhere. We have a multitude of sauces and condiments and exotic ingredients necessary to make various authentic sauces.
We may have to start a 2 sriracha club :-)
Although I only have one, but maybe I can qualify based on bottles of sambal oelek and kochujang along with classic Tabasco (I don't like the jalapeno version you've got). I do have two types of horseradish (my wife is Polish and horseradish is the only vaguely spicy thing in their national cuisine).
-lowwall
I am hereby the president of the 2 sriracha club. Anyone else who wants to join must let me look into their refrigerator.
Also, I LOVE green tabasco. I eat it on pretty much everything in the entire world except brownies. But I even like spicy chocolate so that might be ok too. I too have sambal and horseradish. Not sure if you can see them in this pic though.
i like to also arrange my fridge. leftovers go in one section only. wraps go under the bagged spinach. i also organize from tallest items in the back to shortest in the front so i can see. and i have a whole door shelf dedicated to salad dressings. and i have like 6 different kinds of bbq sauce. and 4 kinds of mustard. sorry no pics. i am also a bit OCD.
You're fridge looks very organized. Mine is full of ongoing science experiments, inadvertantly of course.
I don't think you're nuts because your fridge looks a great deal like mine. I keep a neat fridge b/c my mother's has always been so crammed full that the ketchup stays lost thus we usually had three or four bottles at a time, all in varying stages of emptiness. I'm in rebellion.
I thought that was horseradish peeking in next to the Grey Poupon. You should try some kochujang. It's a korean fermented hot bean and miso paste that has a spicy, salty, smoky flavor that goes well with everything from raw vegetables to grilled meats. If you've had bibimbap, it's the base of the sauce they goes with it.
-lowwall
Oops, I just wiki'd it (they spell it gochujang) and it also contains rice powder. So if your problem is gluten in general instead of just wheat, you might want to stay away.
First, please understand that I can barely boil water. I can tell by your posts that you are a good cook, and by the look of your refrig, have tasty, healthy goodies in there.
And even though I buy good stuff, it often rots untouched and forgotten in the fridge. Now you see how I am, can't cook - abuse the good food - replace it with canned soup or fast food junk/crap so we don't starve. But this doesn't explain why I am terrified of storing anything in the door shelves of the refrig.
I notice you have salad dressing (I think?) in yours, etc. and I am worried about this ...
My kids know that I'll go nuts and throw away anything that they have placed in the door shelves. "Go nuts" because the very ingredient that I need at that moment and it's storming outside .... I will throw it away and either suffer the storm to replace it or cancel the food plans and we'll be eating Progresso soup again. Because I am sure that the item has botulism no matter if the offender swears the butter, eggs, mayo, waffle syrup, milk (you get the idea) has only been in the door shelf for 15 minutes. Cuz I assume your memory can't be trusted if you break my rule "no food items in the door shelves because the temperature is too low and the food will rot and poison me (us)."
I need psycho therapy huh?
L.
Veges! *applause*
I'm trying to teach my two male flatmates about fruit and veges. It's an uphill battle... They recently chucked out my lettuce and carrots and put beer in the crisper >:(
OMG you actually have room to put something in...mine always needs to be cleaned out...please never look in mine.
I've never kept my sriracha (or any hot sauces, actually) in the fridge. Mine lives in the cabinet with the spices and soy sauce. My fridge is relatively organized. Occasionally things get placed in there haphazardly or I'll have the forgotten container of leftovers that molds in the back, but I try to keep up on that stuff. I like to clean it out/take inventory about every 2 weeks, but I don't always remember!
I am so jealous of your fridge -- so clean and neat and big! I would reciprocate with a picture of our fridge, but as I share a half-size fridge with three other people, one of whom is a complete and utter SLOB, I think it might disgust rather than intrigue you.
I will say that we have a lot of alcohol in our freezer compartment. Ah, college life.
I had a senior moment today involving my fridge. I had made my dinner and had just put some salad on my plate. I opened the fridge door and tried to grab the cucumber ranch dressing. It was not there. I opened both doors and looked all around the fridge. Not there. My fridge is neat and organized. I couldn't figure out where it went.
All I could think of was that husband had taken it to work with him. Then I was mad enough to call him at work. I picked up my phone and started to call. That's when I looked up and saw the dressing sitting on the kitchen counter next to my plate. I honestly didn't remember getting it out of the fridge. OMG.. I'm only 51.
oddly, it doesn't come across as really organized to me unless i stare really hard at it...something about the varying sizes and colors of the containers, i guess
Now I have an unholy urge to take a picture of my fridge. It is probably gross and I can't believe that you didn't clean yours before you took that picture.
I, for one, blame Cribs for my obsession with fridge peeping.
You've got nothing over me! When the hubby comes home with a 12-pack of beer, I always offer to put them in the fridge. I line them up (labels out, of course) in 4 rows of 3, spaced apart so they aren't touching each other and I don't hear a clank when I thunder by.
Don't even get me started with my spice cabinet...
Barbara
Because you're my favorite blogger, here's my fridge pic. The fridge is cleaner and emptier than usual because we had a visit from the fridge repairman this morning who tried and failed to find a very slow leak in this !@#$% yuppie fridge that was here when we bought the condo and is going to cost $2000+ to fix or we'll have to find something cheaper that will fit its slot that is 1/8" narrower than any normal fridge from Sears or GE. The unmarked bottles of water are either home made soda water or melting ice we were using to keep the fridge cold while we waited for the repairman. The bottled breast milk if for this guy.
Also note three types of horseradish on the top shelf. The sriracha is in the pantry.
As a bonus, here's my spice drawer. This is the end result of a lengthy cleanup project during pumpkin pie season.
-lowwall
I thought I was the only one with this obsession. There's even a pool on Flickr called "Addicted to Fridges." When I cat-sit, my friends know that I will not prowl through their belongings, but that I *will* open their 'fridge. I'm also glad to see that, like Paige, I'm not the only one with an obscene amount of pickles.
...Um, about the cat...I have no excuse for that.
Gibson Passes Judgment
I will try to take a picture of my fridge especially for you.
When I was a cashier in a supermarket, I loved getting to see what people were buying as I checked them out. Also, I felt it said a lot about people whether or not they were embarrassed about buying embarrassing items. "Hold up, I've got a coupon for that ass ointment!" People who will say things like that eat a lot of cheese doodles.
This is so old it's rediculous, but my path to siriracha was paved by my father, who calls it 'rooster sauce'. He would blend right into Millpond, methinks. Anywho, just saying that I love this stuff! I live in a teeny town in Kentucky, and the walmart HERE has it. Go forth and save, people!