Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I'm back and ready to cook

It's been way too long since I've posted and a lot has happened since then. First off, my fridge died. We've been living without a full-sized fridge for nearly two weeks. The crisper started freezing the veggies months ago, but the repair man wouldn't come back to fix it (see ya in small claims court!). And then one night I got home and the entire fridge smelled of burning-plastic. I opened the door and saw burn marks on the bottom shelf, and part of the door was melted. Fred and I pulled the fridge away from the wall, unplugged it, and thanked our lucky stars that the entire apartment didn't burn down (yes, there was a little bit of drama).

We moved the food to a cooler for two days before giving it to my sister to eat (Hey, Kath how was that aged gouda?). Then we bought a small bar fridge that is now in the dining room. We haven't really been cooking since we can't keep too much food in the apartment. So we've been ordering a lot of take out—thank God we finally got a Thai restaurant in Washington Heights!—and making really simple things like pasta and quesadillas. But the new fridge comes Thursday and I can't wait to restock it and start cooking again.

The other big news is that we bought a house in upstate New York. I'll be posting quite a bit about the journey we took that got us to Copake, N.Y. But right now all I want to say is that the kitchen upstate is HUGE, and we can't wait to start cooking. There's also a giant garden in the backyard that is just calling out for some TLC. I don't know anything about gardening so I've been checking out my upstate neighbor Margaret Roach's blog, Awaytogarden.com, for inspiration. If anyone has any tips on starting a garden, please feel free to send them along.

Once the new fridge is full, a slew of new posts will be coming your way. I've been clipping and saving some recipes that I'll be testing over the next few weeks. I'll also be posting about learning about rototilling, starting a compost heap, and growing my own food from seeds.