The Ritual of Cleaning
Once a month, I clean the fridge like I’m preparing for a surprise health inspection.
Not the casual swipe-and-scoot. I mean drawers out, shelves scrubbed, condiments judged, expiration dates interrogated.
It’s a solo job. No one else is allowed.
Not because I’m territorial, though maybe a little, but because I actually enjoy it.
It’s one of the few chores that makes me feel like I have a grip on something.
And somewhere between clearing shelves and tossing leftovers, I usually end up learning something that has very little to do with food.
Food waste genuinely bothers me.
I plan meals pretty tightly, so there usually isn’t much left at the end of the night.
But every now and then, a bag of Boar’s Head ham dies a slow, quiet death in the deli drawer.
I feel bad until I remember that Misa considers it a gift from heaven.
The Things Left Behind
We usually keep the fridge pretty clean, unless we’ve had people over or one of those weeks where we bought more than we needed.
Even then, the clean-out always reveals something strange.
Most recently, it was a jar of blueberry bourbon pecan jam.
No date. No memory of it.
There are two of us in this house, and neither of us bought it.
It was just there, staring back at me like I was supposed to remember.
I didn’t.
Meals Made from Scraps
Frittatas are one of the best ways to use odds and ends, and I’ve made plenty of good breakfasts and brunches that way.
One of mine came from half a green bell pepper, a quarter of a soft Vidalia onion, the last of some black beans, a scoop of tomatoes that needed using, garlic powder, and a handful of whatever cheese was still hanging on in the dairy drawer.
The result was better than what anyone would of thought it would be.
The kind of thing you make because you need to use things up, then end up thinking about later.
If this sounds familiar, it lives in the same world as A Fridge, a Skillet, and a Little Imagination.
What Needs Tossing Besides Food
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much we keep that no longer deserves the space.
Not just the parsley shoved in the back corner, but expectations.
Old annoyances.
Stories we keep replaying long after they’ve stopped being useful.
Leave anything too long, and it starts to turn.
So maybe I clean out the fridge once a month. But every now and then, I clear out a few thoughts too.
I make space.
I get honest.
Letting Go of the Mystery Jam
Like that jar of blueberry bourbon pecan jam.
No date.
No memory of buying it.
Just sitting there in the fridge like I was supposed to know what to do with it. I didn’t.
And that was enough.
Some things stay too long because you forget they’re there.
Some because you keep thinking you’ll deal with them tomorrow.
Then one day you open the fridge, look straight at them, and know.
It’s time.
Chef Alexis Hernandez writes The Other Side of the Stove. His work has also appeared in News of Sun City Center and South County, and he has appeared on Food Network Star and Cutthroat Kitchen.
