Lost Food Vacation

The refrigerator is one of my favorite vacation spots by the end of the week. Yeah after spaghetti on Sunday, kraut n’ brats on Tuesday, and tacos on Thursday, I pretty much have the world tour of leftovers by Friday. I try to find new ways to serve up remainders but invariably I will miss a container or two. Never fear, eventually the abandoned chow will send up an olfactory billboard as a not-so gentle reminder of their presence.

The freezer has it share of lost souls on board as well. No matter how well I wrap meats, if I don’t cycle through them in a couple of months, the frost bitten parts become pretty tough and flavorless. Mmmm now that’s what I call good eatin’ in a Donner party kind of way. Occasionally I come upon an ice cream bar or fruit bar that got separated from the rest of the platoon. It is a sad sight indeed to see the shrunken dehydrated remains of a once able-bodied ice box confection.

Some of the best action takes place out in the open and right under my nose. The bananas pungently spot up quickly in just days and get so sweet that they require peanut butter or a blender of milk and cream to temper the flavor. Potatoes are great for a month, but after that, they grow spiny prehistoric looking roots all over their little spudly bodies. If you let the Russets rest much longer than that, they will begin to weep putrid stinkwater and hatch tiny flys to give your kitchen that genuine 3rd world feel.

Halloween leftovers, as well as random hard candy collected during the year are always loads of fun. I remember when I was a kid, my Great Aunt would offer me up the same dish of Christmas ribbon candy every year. I would remember the exact placement and pattern of each chunk, but it never would change. In later years though my memory was worse, the task was far easier because you could actually see the Mesozoic dust layers on the candy – YUM!

So never fear if you find an interesting tub of rainbow sherbet in the fridge that never started out life as sherbet at all. Don’t get discouraged if you go to scoop the brown sugar and you find an adobe block instead. We’ve all had our passports stamped in that same vacation spot at one point or another. Just smile, don your wet-suit and industrial nose plugs, and dive on in – the STINKWATER is fine. Now where did I put my flyswatter?