As Halloween Approaches...

...Maybe You Should Clean Out the Refrigerator


I think most of you will agree that this is a universally daunting task. Today, I took it on. Not only did I scrub out months (years?) of food scraps and questionable green stains, but I also discarded a healthy bagful of expired jarred foods: store-bought tomato sauce, with a friendly fuzzy grey substance crawling across the inside of the lid; tubs of non-blue cheese marbled with unwelcome streaks of blue and green; half an onion, half-heartedly swaddled in plastic, as brown and slimy as any Halloween fright you could come up with.

I moved into this apartment in August, and rumor has it nine (9!) human beings inhabited my little abode before the three of us became residents. Furthermore, my current room was most recently vacated by a couple who both took off for the corners of the world, leaving an array of condiments at our disposal. We have THREE JARS of mayonnaise. We have two (large) bottles of sriracha, and something else that looks similar but a tad thinner. There are four kinds of mustard in my refrigerator, as well as five types of jam (techinically two are preserves, but you get the idea). Two jars of capers stand pillared next to two jars of olives, and there is a host of unidentifiable sauces labeled in Asian characters waiting patiently to spice up my next stir-fry.

I bet at this point you think I am going to post about how I used my culinary prowess to concoct a gastronomic miracle out of pickled ginger, a two-week-old cucumber, and three kinds of hot sauce.

You are (thankfully) wrong. But I am going to show you the very nice lunch I put together with sprouting potatoes, summer squash, and the dregs of a package of soy chorizo. There is ample garlic and oregano, a hint of mustard, and a generous dusting of parmesan on top for a proper finishing touch.



The real point of this post: do you know what's in your refrigerator?