Spotlight

Of Hidden Life Forms in the Fridge…and Other Kitchen (Mis)adventures

Disclaimer: Names have been changed for privacy reasons. Also, the author does not guarantee that the potato was actually lonely.

The kitchen is often quite the intriguing place. Many curious objects and organisms of the culinary type such as long lost pickle jars and decaying vegetables thrive there. Some discoveries are horrifying, some shocking, and some are just outright ridiculous. Such was the case for Luca and his sister Reese. A few of their kitchen escapades are retold below, but be warned that they are not for the faint of heart.


Luca once dared to forage around the side shelves on the door. To his great surprise, he made a landmark discovery – a potato that had sprouted. Now this beloved plant had been alone and forgotten in the fridge, so it had sprouted in hopes of being noticed. Although Luca was no green thumb, he decided to bury it in a flower pot and see what would happen. The potato grew beautifully until Luca decided it was time to harvest it. He attempted to gently dig up the dirt, expecting to find at least one new potato. Alas, he only found the slimy remains of the original plant. However, a few minutes later, Reese decided to give it a try, and lo and behold, she found three tiny potatoes and one or two slightly larger ones. Although any ordinary farmer would scoff at their results, the siblings viewed it as a grand harvest. They concluded that their thumbs were greener than they had thought.

A long time ago, in a Costco far away, Reese and Luca’s mother bought a bunch of bananas. They looked yellow, but they were really hard and apparently not ripe. Peeling one open was futile, so they were promptly christened “iron bananas”. Since they were larger than the average banana, their father came to the conclusion that they were not actually bananas. They were really plantains in disguise. He decided that frying them was the best solution, since plantains were generally fried. Fully confident in his culinary skills, he whipped out the frying pan, sliced up the “plantains”, and began. Approximately ten minutes later, he deemed the “plantains” fried and slid them onto plates for Reese and Luca to try. Unfortunately, the only thing frying the “plantains” had accomplished was to make them more disgusting. They were now mushy on the outside and tough on the inside. The children clearly voiced their disapproval, but that just resulted in harming their father’s ego. He simply shoved more of the “delicious fried plantains” down their throats. Since then, “iron bananas” have been a lasting inside joke in the family. All bananas consumed since then have passed the not-iron test.

Reese liked organizing the refrigerator, and at some point, she was officially declared the Manager of Refrigerator. This meant that she organized the refrigerator (especially after a Costco shopping spree) and knew exactly what was in there for how long. Once, her mother bought a package of chicken wings, among many other things. That day, the refrigerator was packed, the day was hot, and Reese was tired. Her mother had put all the refrigerated items together in a deep box, and that is where the mistake was made. Luca had made an attempt to help Reese, but she had shooed him away and insisted that she could manage things on her own. Three or four days later, her mother claimed that she kept smelling something rotten close to the kitchen. Luca and Reese had caught a whiff also, but had no idea what it could be either. A couple hours later, Reese was asked to take out the chicken wings for dinner.

“What chicken wings? I didn’t see any chicken wings,” she said

Her mother insisted that there were, and Reese insisted there were not. They reached an impasse, so her mother went back to complaining about the rotten smell. Finally, she just threw up her hands and went hunting around the kitchen to see if she could find anything. Then she looked inside of the deep box she had used a couple days ago after her Costco trip. In the very bottom of the box, sort of camouflaged in a bag, lay the chicken wings, a putrid smell emanating from the package. The three of them groaned inwardly and promptly blamed Reese for being careless.


Moral of the stories? Beware of kitchens.

 

Photo Credit: Bradney, Jo. “Old Potatoes Sprouting: charcoal still life drawing (Carbon Footprint #14)”. 2009.  Jo Bradney, bradney.com/wet-paint/616. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021.

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