One of my friends and I had lunch today (homemade quesadillas -- spinach, onion, and mushroom -- with organic cheese. yum!), and we got to talking about the biggest problem of being single. Sure, we sometimes miss the companionship, and it isn't fun to scramble for dates to social functions. But the biggest day-to-day annoyance is the fridge.
Yeah, that's right. I have big fridge issues, and I'm not afraid to talk about it. Specifically, I have problems using up things I buy before they go bad. Either I eat the same thing all the time, or I inevitably throw out spoiled food. This holds true for both fruits/veggies and for bottled or jarred items. I recently discovered that both jam and salsa will grow mold; I've never before used either slowly enough to learn this before. My concern with buying food these days is geared much more toward "what is cheaper and/or better quality (ie organic) in a quantity I'm likely to actually use without throwing any away?"
When I had a boyfriend, or even when I shared food with roommates, this wasn't an issue. Heck, last summer, I was cooking a lot with friends, and we significantly reduced the food spoilage issue (mostly because said friends and I would use tons of veggies in our cooking, so my only spoiling threats were obscure sauces that just couldn't be completely used up).
Of course, the universe decided to show me that my single woes were not so bad. Upon coming back from a busy evening of frisbee (a short game stopped by lightning in which only one other person from my team showed up, so we had to borrow lots of players) and pub quiz (in which my team of three people narrowly lost to the team of 6 of our friends we had challenged), I discovered that my food spoiling issue was about to get bigger. Much, much bigger.
I opened the freezer to find that almost all our food was practically thawed. Seriously? My fridge couldn't just up and stop working. It had to go and blow warm air on everything to speed the thawing process.
I've had broken fridges before, but we always managed to pile frozen stuff in the sink, pour ice all over it, and keep it cool enough until we could fix the fridge (typically by defrosting whatever ice was blocking up the works). In this case, almost everything was ruined. I managed to salvage my organic yogurt, organic cheese, organic butter, and organic eggs, and I'm taking a chance with some half thawed beef and chicken (yes, it will be thoroughly cooked). One of my accommodating friends was up late and let me get everything into her fridge/freezer.
Side note: not everything I buy is organic. I put a priority on saving my organic stuff. But my all-natural (and yummy!) ice cream went into the garbage alongside no-longer-frozen fruit, some salmon, some definitely not-organic popsicles, and who knows what else from the freezer.
It's past midnight, and I've still got work to do before I have to actually go to work tomorrow. Right now, I want my kid card back. Seems like that would solve all my food woes.