Food

Do you ever look at photos of fridge interiors, and dream wistfully of your own fridge being so well organised? Do you even look at photos of fridge interiors to begin with? No? Well, evidently you haven’t spent much time checking out #whatsinmyfridge. It’s not all amazing – in fact, be prepared for the occasional downright eyesore – but some of it’s worthy of #inspo status and makes me want to up my fridge game.

The first step, it seems, is having everything in bowls or lovely glass containers with bamboo lids. That means no 32-piece packs of cheap plastic boxes, which are surely leaching weird synthetic chemicals into all your leftovers. It also means having nothing in commercial packaging, unless it’s locally made kimchi, French butter or a trendy brain optimisation powder that needs to be stored in the original packaging. Clear glass mason jars of beautifully executed DIY ferments and preserves are, of course, allowed, as are abundant piles of loose vegetables.

Next is creating easy-access servings of healthy snacks. For weight loss or building lean muscle, these might be lightly steamed florets of broccoli stored next to some homemade hummus. All that’s needed is a drizzle of olive oil, which is waiting on your counter in a stylish glass decanter (no labels allowed, naturally), and you’re good to go. Or maybe some plant-based protein balls in a little bowl. I’d be inclined to cover the bowl with a saucer, but that doesn’t seem to be the done thing, at least not if you’re going for maximum visual impact.

You’ll sometimes see fridge posts from people who seem to be a highly orchestrated weight loss meal plan. Delivery of frozen meals might sound out of line with this whole aesthetic, but it kind of works visually when the portions are neatly stacked on one side of the fridge, and the rest of the space filled with loose fresh produce.

The whole fascination for me is really just the orderly arrangement – I could swear there are conscious decisions about colour palettes going on in some of these photos. Maybe it’s unrealistic to aspire to that, but I just can’t stop looking.

Meals with the in-laws are always an interesting experience. Note that when I say interesting, what I really mean is exasperating. The food’s great and conversations generally not too shabby, but I always get this background feeling that Dave’s parents out to compete with me.

It’s like they secretly believe I’ve stolen Dave away from them (never mind that he’s a 36 year-old tax attorney) and have this long-term plot to prove to him my shortcomings in the kitchen department.It’s super weird that (a) they seem to team up on this, and (b) they only do it at mealtimes. I guess it’s because they’re both excellent cooks, so it’s an area in which they can pool their talents and make double the impact.

This time, it all kicked off over the entree when Dave brought up some new concept he’d heard about regarding weight loss for men. Meal plans became the hot topic of conversation, and this quickly spiralled into an argument and Dave’s mother throwing me a pointed sidelong glance while tut-tutting about Dave not eating enough. This is far from the case (as Dave would be happy to admit), but even if it was, that’s surely his responsibility, not mine.

Dave tends to be kind of oblivious to all this, which is fair seeing as it’s pretty subtle and primarily directed at me. I was just hoping he would bring up the fact that we’d discussed using a weight loss meal delivery service for a couple of weeks while the floor in the kitchen gets done. We’ll both be really busy during that period, and if we don’t plan an easy solution, we’ll just end up eating out every night for two weeks. But I was willing to bet that this notion wouldn’t go down too well at the dinner table. More to the point, I’d get the blame for it, despite the fact that (as mentioned) we’re grown-ups and each responsible for our own diets.

He didn’t mention it, so I dodged a bullet there. And the hibiscus syrup cake for dessert was really good.