5 Rules for a Minimalist Fridge

Thoughts

Aug 29

10+ years of living in a small apartment in the middle of Manhattan means that Anthony and I both pretty good at keeping limiting the amount of stuff that comes into the apartment. But on a minimalist scale from Hoarder to “My only possessions are a Swiss Army knife and this blanket,” he’s a happy 5, and I’m an aspiring 8.

Our main battle ground? The kitchen. He’s an extremely skilled cook, and likes to get fancy with it. I’d be happy eating the same 5 meals week after week because it would mean we’d need less equipment.

Thus, we compromise. The ice cream maker had to go, but the tamis can stay. Stuff like that.

So about the fridge. We both hate a crowded fridge, but we’ve both been fairly guilty of, well … crowding it. Anthony likes to save bacon fat and guanciale fat. That’s two containers right there, that I confess every time I have to move them around to make room for the latest grocery delivery, I feel a little stabby. But I let them stay, because if he threw out my homemade ranch, the divorce papers would just say ranch.

This is what marital bliss comes down to, guys. Pork fat and ranch.

But those aren’t what’s crowding the fridge, not really.

Here are the culprits leading to what I’ll call Fridge Stuff.

Specialized ingredients that you buy for one specific recipe, and you tell yourself you’ll make sure to pick another recipe that uses that ingredient. Only, you become sort of blind to it, just sitting there in the door of the fridge. And then the door gets so crowded that you go to investigate, and see that that random specialized bbq sauce is several months expired. Case in point, I recently threw out Mongolia Fire Oil that expired a year and a half ago. And we somehow have two things of Worcestershire sauce, and I can’t even remember the last time we used Worcestershire sauce.
Buying groceries in bulk or for the week; or even a few days out. Now, I understand that people who live in rural areas, have a big family, or for whom time to grocery shop is limited, buying in bulk and planning ahead is just plain practical. But for two childless, self-employed adults living in a city where can be at a dozen different grocery stores in under ten minutes? We really don’t need to be buying anything on Monday that we won’t eat until Thursday. If I know I want roasted cauliflower on Thursday, I can literally walk across the street, and be back with cauliflower in under 5 minutes on Thursday. And let’s not even discuss the fact that Sunday Lauren is terrible about predictiing what Thursday Lauren will want to eat (it’s never cauliflower).
Wine. We keep a bottle of white wine and rosé in the fridge, are committed to always keeping a bottle of Pol Roger Champagne in the fridge for spontaneous celebrations, plus we have sweet vermouth for Manhattans in there, and Lillet Blanc for Vespers…
Lying to yourself about how long something will last in the fridge. This is a sneaky one I’ve only recently identified. “This anchovy paste has been here awhile, but that stuff lasts forever.” (It doesn’t). “Okay, we haven’t touched those pickles in 9 months, but they’re pickles, they don’t go bad” (they do). “Guanciale has lots of fat on it, so it should last until my next birthday.” (No).
Lying to yourself about how you’ll use everything up. “This recipe requiring a tablespoon of roasted red pepper sounds good, and I’ll definitely find another recipe to use up the remaining 90% of this huge roasted red pepper jar even though I don’t really love roasted red pepper…”
Healthy stuff takes up room. Surely I’m not the only one that laments that a box of processed mac and cheese or a sugar-laden candy bar is delightfully compact, but if you come home from the store with a head of broccoli, some nice leafy local kale, and a package of baby spinach, and the watermelon that in season, then your fridge is pretty much already full before you’ve even unloaded the eggs. We aren’t vegetarians, but we do eat mostly plant based (+ bacon fat & ranch, I guess), which means our fridge is mostly always an explosion of green, plus we like to take advantage of fresh berries in summer, and then we always have citrus on hand, and it’s nice to have fresh parsley in the fridge, and that head of radicchio was too beautiful to pass up…You get the idea. Healthy food is bulky food, especially if you buy the local stuff that doesn’t come in a plastic clamshell.

No matter how minimalist we were in other areas of the apartment, the fridge was always bursting, and I’m ashamed to say … we were throwing out way more food than I was comfortable with. Greens that “went” before we could get to them, the moldy blueberries that got shoved and forgotten behind the incoming Napa Cabbage. The hummus that I bought because it was on sale, even though neither of us was really in the mood for hummus. The brown and gummy tarragon that got tossed because used 2 leaves for one recipe, and had no plan for the rest of it.

I’m not sure why I let myself think for so long that it had to be this way. That it was just a hazard of being a small family of two who struggles to get through an enormous bushel of cherries before some of them rot, who tries to eat a wide variety of green stuff, who prides themselves in “trying new things",” and thus dutifully buys the long, long list of whatever the fun new recipe says we should buy.

And then, one random Thursday, just like any other, as I tossed a moldy hunk of pepperjack cheese that had gotten wedged behind a kind of cheese I don’t even like, a bundle of thyme that had turned brown, and as I struggled to find room in the freezer for the stuff in the fridge we didn’t get to that week, I just quietly decided:

We’re changing how we do things.

Here are my new Fridge Rules:

Limit condiments: If we don’t repurchase it regularly, we don’t need it. For us, dijon mustard, soy sauce and capers are no-brainers; we are constantly restocking those things and use them for a variety of dishes. For you, maybe it’s Tabasco and ketchup that are an auto-buy. But as for our sun-dried tomatoes? Jarred jalapeños? Anchovy paste? Sure, we like those things a lot, but the number of times I’ve had to throw out a half-used jar tells me we don’t like them enough to warrant a spot in our fridge. (Also, we don’t eat bottled salad dressing, but I know bottled dressings are a major culprit in many fridges! Let each family member keep their absolute favorite—hopefully there will be repeat favorites—and toss the rest, and don’t buy any new, fancy ones, no matter what that new, fancy recipe says.)
Shop for perishables more often: If we’re not going to eat it in its entirety today or tomorrow, it doesn’t come in the house. I know I can’t eat strawberries, peaches, grapes, kale, zucchini, asparagus, mixed greens, and spinach all at once, so why am I buying them all at once. I am not so busy that I can’t buy the strawberries today to eat tomorrow morning, and that I can’t find five minutes to go to the store again tomorrow to see what fruit appeals for the next day. The same goes for when we eat meat. The two of us can’t go through a pound of a package of thighs and an entire pound of ground beef in two days, so why am I buying them at the same time? Now I don’t buy the beef until we’ve eaten the chicken thighs and the chicken thigh leftovers.
Buy smaller amounts of things. This one’s a point of contention with Anthony, who always likes to get the 10oz thing of spinach instead of the 5oz because it’s cheaper per ounce. But the 10oz thing takes up an entire shelf in the fridge, and unless we’re really in a health groove, we’ve had to dump some of it more often than I care to admit. And on my end, I’m guilty of buying two things of my mixed salad greens at once because I’m lazy. That’s another shelf taken up in the fridge. I’ve also gotten over my disdain of pre-cut veggies. Sure, the whole head of celery is cheaper, but I have neither the space nor the appetite for an entire head of celery when I only need a half-cup.
Eat what’s in the fridge. Obvious, I know, but surely Anthony and aren’t the only ones who’ve opened up a fridge and thought, “There’s nothing to eat,” when what we meant was, “I don’t want those grapes, I don’t feel like cooking that pork chop, and I’m tired of blanched green beans.” I love the idea that eating food should be joyful, but I feel even more strongly that wasted food is a huge issue in America, and I’ve been a part of the problem. If there’s any food in the fridge, there’s something to eat. I don’t need to go shopping.
Simplify meals. This is a necessity caused by rule #1. If we don’t have sun dried tomatoes, then let’s not make that pasta that calls for sun-dried tomatoes. Especially when we already have all the stuff on hand for spaghetti aglio e olio and we know it’s a favorite. We used to stock our fridge based on recipes. Now we choose our recipes based on what’s in our fridge, or what we actively want to be in our fridge. The older I get, the more I realize that the satisfying meals are often the simplest and the most familiar. A grilled cheese and a green salad. Some white wine, dijon and a pad of butter to make a quick sauce for the pork chops. A stir fry to use up all those random bags of veggies in the freezer. And you can’t tell me you don’t think that sometimes there is no better meal than cheese and crackers; bonus points if you throw in a fruit or vegetable. I know, I know, I get kind of turned on by a hot new cookbook too, but don’t underestimate the satisfaction derived from frozen vegetables roasted with a bit of olive oil and sea salt. A piece of bread with butter. A perfectly scrambled egg. A simply baked piece of fish.
Repeat meals. Maybe even a lot. In the same way many minimalists wear the same thing every day to simplify and minimize decisions so they can get on with the important stuff, eating the same thing most days is just … well, damn, it’s nice. It’s easy to shop for. It makes my fridge look sexy and organized as hell. And it ensures we’re always eating something we know we like. I’ve noticed a huge improvement in life since Anthony and I embraced eating routine rather than fighting it. And please don’t freak out about our nutrient diversity; we have fruit morning, but never the same fruit two days in a row. We have a big green salad every day for lunch, but constantly vary the greens. We put nuts and beans on the salads, but again, we don’t repeat the same type of nut or bean back-to-back. We roast a lot of vegetables for dinner, but always choose something that’s in season or that we haven’t had in a while.