Saturday Nov 23

On Hiatus

From Plate to Palate, with Amanda McGuire: January 2011

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Amanda-McGuire The inside of someone’s fridge says more about that person than their choice of car, clothes, or music ever could.
 
Our fridge always has craft beer, high quality cheese, and grass-fed meats from a local farmer. There are always containers of leftovers that we pick at until the goods are gone. And there are always fresh vegetables that I try to keep contained in their appropriately labeled crisper drawers.
 
AMR_2 Objectively speaking, our fridge reflects my OCD-ish organizational tendencies and my slight 2012 end-of-the-world paranoia. Hence, the Four Loko stockpile. On a serious note, it reveals our belief in local foods and organics.
 
AMR_3 Whenever I open our fridge, our dog Bleu runs to meet me and sniffs every morsel within reach of his nose. He’s never tried to snatch a locally-made turkey sausage, but I see mastermind plans hatching in the way he wags his entire body when he finds a smell he particularly likes.
 
Bleu’s enthusiasm for the fridge and my food obsession led me to the first 2011 issue of From Plate to Palate—What’s In Your Fridge?
 
For most the thought of opening their fridges to complete strangers is like inviting strangers to root around in medicine cabinets or junk drawers. Fridges often times are private property. But with unabashed pride, the contributors in this issue photographed their fridges and examined the contents.
 
AMR_1 From the pondering of food politics in Cal Freeman’s essay to the list of what goes in Kate Northrop’s prose poem “I love my mother.  I clean out her fridge,” this issue of From Plate to Palate sneaks a peek beyond the refrigerator’s doors. Tenaya Darlington, a.k.a Madame Fromage, shares the ingredients of a well-stocked fridge while Andrea Iglar turns groceries into a comforting winter dinner. Booze-hounds Laura Brennan and Txema Oh lay bare their ice box to humorously reflect upon Dr. Sandra Cabot’s Liver Diet.
 
 While compiling this issue what became clear to me was that refrigerators are more than boxes with motors; they mirror our sentiments on food politics, our emotions toward food, and our survival instincts. And they eerily remind us of childhood.
 
As you ring in the New Year, don’t neglect to give your fridge some attention. Maybe even a good thorough cleaning. You just might discover something about yourself that you hadn’t anticipated.