What's in Martha's Fridge?

I had my family over a couple of weeks ago for a small housewarming. We're not 100% furnished, but I think we've gone pretty far within 9 months considering that we renovated, moved in, and got the place functional, clean & furnished with the basic furniture we need (not mention that my head was buried in books for a few months). My sister, who is also my plant doctor, is a bit of a snoop, so I wasn't surprised that she looked around, especially inside my fridge, took photos and sent them to me in an email entitled "What's in Martha's Fridge?" Very funny.

What exactly is in my fridge? Well, to start off, I don't have an expensive gourmet fridge (our condo-sized apartment simply doesn't have enough space), so things may not be as organized as I'd like them to be, especially in the freezer. What you see isn't a true representation of our fridge since we were in party mode. For example, I don't store a huge container of homemade crab cakes at all times (as if my husband and I feast on them for breakfast every day). Nevertheless, you can get a sense of how we live.


We have at all times butter, orange juice, jarred sauces & condiments (oyster sauce, black bean sauce, chili sauce, mustard, ketchup, hot sauce), wine for cooking and beer (a must for my husband) on the door of the fridge, grouped by category. Inside, we keep the other juice and milk on the upper level (we used to store our milk on the fridge door but switched since the temperature could be higher on the fridge door). On the middle level are containers of various things (stored in containers to cut down on using plastic wrap), eggs, herbs (wrapped in paper towels to prolong freshness in the bin), vegetables and salad. On the lower level are heavy items like potatoes, corn and a whole chicken that's been sorta dry-brined for dinner another night. In the bottom bins, we have onions in one bin and fruits in the other. Yes, we put everything in the fridge, including potatoes, garlic and onion, to avoid a return of the roaches from the days of the previous dirty owners.

As for the freezer, you'll see that this is different and more packed than the one my husband (then fiance) had in his...it was stocked for one person. On the freezer door, I have various things in containers - left over egg yolks, homemade vanilla ice cream, frozen peas, left over homemade duck stock, jalapeno in chipotle sauce, vegetable scraps to be used in stock later on and vodka. Inside, you can't miss the smiley face bag, which blocked the ice tray and housed 2 lobster heads that my sister brought to me that day; she had thoughtfully saved them for me to be used in lobster stock (thanks sis!). On the same level, you'll see ice cream (we wanted to check out if Blue Bunny, on sale that week, was what it was cracked up to be in the Cook's Illustrated magazine taste test), dumpling wrappers, chicken drumsticks in the back, lobster stock and a container of homemade dumplings.


On the lower level are various cuts of red meat, which I don't usually touch since they're for the carnivore who lives with me. There are also pork chops and various cuts of pork for making Chinese soup. I find that chops and steaks are best stored in such a height-challenged area of the freezer.

That's my cold closet, in all its glory and most importantly, unstyled! It took me a while to get to what works for us in terms of organizing the fridge, so I'm kinda proud of how far we've come from those frozen entree days when we first bought the place and had nothing to cook with because we were renovating. Well, what do you think of my fridge?