My life is free and an open book. If you don't believe me I'm sure there's a snapshot floating around the internet of a young Matt on some playa naturalista on the mediterranean. Oh god I hope not - your YOUR sake. However, that open book slams shut and you'd be wise to watch your fingers when you head over to my fridge. Who knows what kind of embarassing things you'll find there. You might discover that Adam is the real cook in the house or that I subsist almost entirely on dairy products like cheese and half and half. So it was with sweaty palms and a nervous heartbeat that I decided to participate in the latest challenge of revealing the deepest, most innermost secrets.  Of my fridge.

The challenge was simple: don't futz with or manipulate your fridge and capture it just the way it is. Easy enough I figured... I'm forever turning bottles to face properly.

Our fridge is nothing spectacular. It's not a professional model, it's not expensive, but golly, it works! It's usually overpacked with work stuff, but I do think I caught it at a good time as it's a bit more spacious and represents an example of our regular personal life. I do think it would have been fantastic to photograph it with the 5k worth of caviar or the 2 whole legs of Serrano ham that were there for a photo shoot, but then you'd probably expect me to wear gold chains and floss an escalade and get into spats with champagne makers, yo.  No way. However, I could do without the current exterior color shade (I call it melted vanilla ice cream) and without the automatic ice maker.  You may know I'm a stickler for the right cube, and my bizarre half ice disks don't quite cut it for me. But I shouldn't complain. Ice is ice. Well, sorta.

Being the dork that I am I decided on presenting you a graphical representation of our fridge. After I finished my little chart I realized that had I not recently visited the doctor I'd probably think my arteries were clogged with melted cheese. Mmmm, melted cheese! That sounds so good right about now! Wait, oh, yes, my fridge. Without further delay...

Matt's Fridge. Drumroll, please. Why am I so nervous?

and

Whew!

Ok, so that wasn't so bad.

What's in your fridge?

 

typo alert: I just noticed I typed "draw" and not "drawer."  I'm tired. I will fix it later. Can you forgive me?

Comments

[Gaucha Guapa]

Matt you are a nut! I loved your diagrams, however, I think you should have left out the lists and had a contest. The person who could name the most unmarked jars and bags of foodstuffs correctly would get a prize. I don't know...say a block of cheese or a fondue set?
=)

[Jerry]

Matt,
You're inspiring me to pull out my Wacom more often. The diagrams are priceless! (an overlay would have been pretty nice, too... Hmmmm.)

[Mary]

Awesome diagrams. I wanna learn how to do that. I'm with you on the ice maker and I love your taste in rosé. I'm also a freak about turning the labels facing out. Are your spices alphabetized, too?

[kitchenbeard]

Someone emailed me and asked if I was going to do this. I replied "You have an active fantasy life, don't you."

Now... let's talk about that bottle of dulce de leche......

[Stacy Simpson]

You are TOO funny. I can't believe you made a diagram of your fridge. Who does that? It is so great! love it

[gabbyrosi]

i love that you are totally insane, festidious.....and crazy.

[Sara - Piperita]

I just told my husband: "E' pazzo, completamente: ha fatto un diagramma del suo frigorifero!!!" (he's crazy, completely: he made a diagram of his own fridge) but he wasn't so impressed... I was, for sure!!!
And I'm especially impressed by the choice of cheese condiments!!! I'm wondering on what are you planning to put them: you have no cheese in the fridge...
;-)

[nika]

Cheese rulz.

I could stop there because that is a perfect moment in itself but I too am impressed by your diagram and ALSO by the whole fronting obsessiveness.

You would end your days in a quivering mass of incoherence in our house if you obsessed about labels in our fridge. With an ADD husband and an ADD 10 year old.. labels barely exist.

I just cleaned my oven, I could take shots of that but NOT my fridge, its past due for cleaning, scraping, bleaching, and gamma irradiation. (If only I could find my handy household gamma source, misplaced it the other day while nuking the weeds, oh well)

[Lisa (Homesick Texan)]

I don't think I've seen more yummy cheeses in one place since my last trip to Murray's! I also have a ton of film in my fridge, but unfortunately since I switched to digital last August, my rolls are just sitting there unloved and unused. But hey, expired film makes for some interesting prints!

[danielle anthony]

would you PLEASE stop drawing your refrigerator contents and get to taking some more food pictures? i need it.

[Melissa]

Yay, film! I don't know why that makes me so happy.

I'm suffering from serious cheese and cheese-condiment envy, however. I think I need to go shopping.

And please teach me how to make a diagram - that is just too cool!

[Catherine]

All I have to say is, where do you buy dulce de leche in a freaking squeeze bottle?

[Melissa]

I think my favorite part of this is that you keep labels facing forward. With many years spent in bookstores, I will tidy and alphabetize books anywhere I go if left unchecked. Mmmm, Fiscalini cheddar!

[Lizzy]

In my fridge there is a jar of nasty looking marinated green beans from New Year's Eve Party. Also some Tomolives from the same party. Thanks for the inspiration to clean out my fridge! Your fridge has many yummy things, mine not so much. Time to go shopping!

[BustersDad]

Thank you, thank you for baring your fridge! I want to hear more about the lemon bitters!?! My taste buds are intruiged. . .

[Steve]

SIGNIFICANTLY more stocked than mine.
I think usually you open my fridge door and hear crickets in there. Right now it's full of bottled water, though.

[cindy]

i often look in ours and there is no room to put anything, but nothing to eat....all condiments! i too, have a whole drawer devoted to cheese!

[david]

crackers made of chocolate??

[Deborah Dowd]

A fridge so organized you can diagram it??! Unfortunately, my fridge is always packed to the gills... and there are always the "nether regions" where leftovers or excess produce go to die (or grow fuzz!)

[nika]

I keep an old B & W film canister in my freezer (from like 96 - just cant bring myself to pitch it)..

Matt: do you ever put film in the freezer or just the fridge? In the lab, we always kept it in the fridge - down at the bottom. That was mostly because I went through many 100s of rolls and so fast that I didnt want to wait for frozen film to thaw. We kept our x-ray film in the freezer (less noise) .. now a days.. its all digital in the lab so no one but the old crusty curmungenous lab types will have the film in the fridge.

[s'kat]

I'm a compulsive labels-out kinda gal myself. My husband, when feeling impish, will systematically turn them all around- it drives me crazy!

And your cheeses are simply many and mighty.

[loulou]

Priceless diagrams!
Is there a cheeseaholics anonymous chapter in the neighborhood you could join?

[sam]

everyone has upped me with their fridge post presentation.

[S]

Hi Matt,

I just let a whole lot of film sitting on the bottom shelf of our fridge "move on" into the trash. It made me feel melancholic. But somehow, knowing that we enjoy the same kind of milk (Horizon) and maple syrup somehow brings a smile to my face :)