Fridge Funkage

On Sunday, I was fed up--I had to clean my refrigerator.

For the past month, something was funky and I didn't know what or where it was. Trust me, I was sniffing EVERYTHING! The problem was the funk had permeated every single thing, including the ice cubes.

It was time.

The only time my fridge is packed full of food is around the holidays. I'm a big--eat leftovers or I toss them out--fan. Nothing usually stays in there longer than three weeks--TOPS. And I never grow science experiments in there. Well, hubster was home for the holidays and I cooked almost every day, which meant lots of lefties . . . and an increase in funkage.

I had enough!

Plus cleaning the fridge got me out of cleaning the rest of the house. :-) THANKS, HONEY!!

I started with the door shelves, removing jars, condiments, booze, salad dressing, etc. along with the shelves. Scrub-a-dub-dub and it was all nice and shiny again. Since everything was out, it was time to purge. I found a Newman's Italian salad dressing that was a year past the printed expiration date, a year old jar of capers, two types of jelly that hadn't been used a a long time ever since the kidlet switched to peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and a tube of anchovy paste from when I made homemade Caesar dressing. All tossed.

I started with the shelves, pulling out food, lefties, and a variety of other stuff. I found a container of unopened sour cream--expired in December, and I tossed some of the older lefties. I took out the shelves and washed them. I cleaned the walls, even getting into the tiny crevices that the shelves slid into. But nothing smelled like the funk.

Time for the three bins. Top bin holds cheese and lunch meats. I thought it was the Genoa salami, but no, that was just pungent garlic. Second bin was the veggies. By this time everything stank. And the third bin I usually keep onions, lemons, and assorted other stuff.

Everything was scrubbed down. I even figured out how to take out the supports for the bins, and cleaned all around. I started loading the bins. The top one was okay, but I did throw some open hot dogs. But that wasn't what smelled.

I did the bottom bin, 'cause it's half the size of the veggie bin. Nope, not there.

Finally, I took care of the veggie bin. I had lettuce, parsley, kale, celery, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower. The lettuce, carrots and celery were fresh. And so was the kale and parsley--what can I say?--our little guinea pig LOVES kale and parsley! The mushrooms were fairly fresh, but they had absorbed the stank, so I tossed them. That left broccoli and cauliflower--nasty-ass smelling stuff on their own.

It was the cauliflower--it didn't look bad, but DAMN! it stunk after I opened the bag--uh, if it happens to you . . . DO NOT OPEN THE CONTAINER!

An hour and a half later--and my fridge is super-duper clean!

Now, I can . . . Write On!