Refrigerator Update and Cleaning

Remember when we bought our super awesome super giant new-to-us fridge? It was 9 months ago? Once in the kitchen and plugged in, I lovingly cleaned it and arranged the shelving and door buckets and strategically placed each refrigerated item.

Then I worked that fridge like a team of mules.

A couple months in, the door didn't want to close right, getting hung up on the little pushy-thing that when pushed, turns the light off, and when released, turns the light on. I think it had something to do with the multiple bulk (aka ultra-heavy) items from Costco in the strategically-placed door buckets, offsetting the door. Rodney rigged the little pushy-light-off-and-on-switch-thingy with the end of a tie-strap so the door would close properly. It still works to this day, that same tie-strap. Ahh, that 5 cent tie-strap. It prevented the $300 fridge from becoming a "big piece of crap" to me.

The spill-proof shelving has held true to their word. Anything spilled on a shelf did not trickle down to wet items below. Instead, the spilled goo (pork blood) stealthily pooled and dried, cementing whatever rarely-moved jar in the viscinity to it's original and nearly final location. Raw egg, somehow cracked against the wall of the fridge (at the top of course), flowed freely past each spill-proof shelf to pool at the bottom of the refrigerator directly beneath a clear crisper drawer.

Fruit flies, for some reason, have been drawn to the coolness of the refrigerator to be smothered, left to die at the bottom of the refrigerator, near the crusty egg pool.

Of course, I didn't realize all of this until I decided that since it had been a few weeks since I had put together a food plan that the fridge should be cleaned. Today would be a good day because I hardly bought anything perishable:

Even Spooky marveled at what is in the depths. But really, he is eyeballing his yellow-capped can of moist beefy chunks in tasty-to-cats gravy, better known as Friskies Beef in Gravy.

Working my way from top to bottom, as you'd wash a car, I moved items from the top shelf to those toward the bottom. Once the top shelf was clear of items, I removed it and washed it with warm soapy water in the shower-tub. Don't get grossed out or give me grief -- I don't have a sprayer thingy on the kitchen sink and the sink is only so big.

The clean shelf was allowed to drip-dry a bit before wiping dry with clean paper towel. The shelf was returned and items were returned to the top shelf; items that called the middle shelf home were moved to the top and the middle shelf was washed in the shower-tub. Good enough for the top shelf, good enough for the middle!

Once the middle shelf was returned to it's original location, bottom-shelf items were jammed into the top and middle shelves to clear the way of the bottom shelf. Crispers were also removed.

Leaving these black dots and big, yellow, crusty blob:


Black dots? Dead fruit flies.


Yellow blob? Raw egg, long dried. Petrified.


Warm, soapy water took care of both to leave this glowing loveliness:


In all, I combined two half-bottles of cran-raspberry juice; threw out 5 parmesan rinds (which I'll likely regret as I'll suddenly come across an awesome recipe that includes parmesan cheese rinds), half a soggy Jersey Mike's regular-sized Original Italian sandwich on wheat Mike's Way from lunch earlier, half a jar of apple sauce we'll never finish, some salsa in a small bowl; made worm food of old tomatoes, quince, butter lettuce, apples, oranges, herbs, cabbages, lettuces, and thawed bananas (bananas too long thawed for me).

Now that this baby is all cleaned out (including the door, though I forgot to collect proof), I'm ready to fill it again. Hopefully in more of a wise way -- with food we'll eat rather than make worm food from.


Tell me, how often do you clean your refrigerator and what do you find in there?

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