Refrigerator Residents

Fang is in California on business so I find myself in the odd position of having the apartment all to myself for a week. On these rare occasions, I take the opportunity to undertake dramatic home changes and basic tedious cleaning. Yesterday I moved furniture around in two rooms, changed lighting and started to paint the bathroom (which I will have to finish today, I suppose). The point is this: without the distraction of another body in the residence, I can get transfixed by the simplest chore and lose all track of time. It's completely relaxing for me.

Case in point: unable to sleep this morning, I rose at 5:30 and started some coffee. While waiting for this critical elixir to brew, I started cleaning out the refrigerator. I started wiping down the shelves. I started sorting out the odd foodstuffs that have hidden unmolested for ungodly durations. I filled the trash can with half eaten containers of sour cream and hotel sized jam jars and a container of rice from the last Chinese take out delivery. Freely purged, I realized there was no actual real food left in the refrigerator, only condiments.

And condiments, we have in spades. You never know when you'll need that squeeze bottle of creamed horseradish or family size bottle of BBQ sauce. There was taco sauce, salsa, tomato sauce and five different kinds of hot sauce. The Worcester sauce spooned with the jar of prepared horseradish and beets. There was ketchup and mayonnaise and kosher pickles and olives. Four jars of different kinds of marmalade (including one from Austria and one from England). A bottle of soy sauce and another bottle of SoyVey. A container of scallion cream cheese. Salted and unsalted butter. Peanut butter. A carton of chicken broth. Two squeeze bottles of brown mustard and a ceramic container of moutarde en grains from France. Red vinegar, white vinegar, balsamic vinegar and a bottle of maple syrup shaped like a maple leaf that someone brought back from Vermont. There were three bottles of Brianna's salad dressing. And a lone green and white package of lard--bought purely for making roux for gumbo.

Outside of a half gallon of soy milk, one lone egg, half a red onion and a few packets of cheese, the refrigerator was bare and bereft.

But at least it was clean.