Fridge

So I wake up bright and early (and very, very cold) this morning to the sound of squirrels dropping walnuts on my car's windshield. Ah, fall!

Go to make myself some breakfast and find out that something has died in the refrigerator overnight. Bleah. Avoid the fridge for a few hours, then decide that I need to go excavating. I pull out the chicken breasts that have been in the bottom of the fridge for probably too long and try to decide if they are still safe to eat. Even after working for the health department I am still sometimes too adventurous for my own good. I pull them out and there is some sort of fluid everywhere. Ick. I pull out the offending meat, the bacon that was sitting on top, and the leftover remains of the chicken tagine from Radio Maria's, which my sister had deemed "too spicy" and left for me to finish. I then discover that the chicken has not sprung a leak, but that the freezer has decided to defrost itself and there is now at least a half-gallon of stale, stinky water at the bottom of the fridge (it's an old unit). Real fun to clean up, let me tell you.

So now the kitchen is a mess, I need to disinfect the fridge, and I am out the money spent on the chicken breasts (boneless, skinless, expensive), which have been sitting in contaminated water for the gods know how long. I tossed out a few other items that had likely gone bad, fried up the spinach fritters that were past their due date, ate a few, then tossed out the remainder, which I had decided were too iffy.

Now, to make up for it all, I am making myself Negimaki (thinly sliced beef rolled around green onions and sauteed, served in a slightly sweet sauce) because the ones I got last week from a local Japanese restaurant *suuucked* (sorry Shea). Much better now.