Our Thanksgiving kick-off: Cleaning the fridge

‘Tis the season — to clean out your fridge! Today is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day in preparation for Thanksgiving and making room for leftovers!
In our family, we used to randomly clean out the fridges when either they got overstuffed or we kept finding mystery food. Then, we added cleaning the three fridges to the weekly job rotation when the kids were younger, and now, we’re at about once every two weeks. We’ve downsized to just two fridges and from three deep freezers to only one. Weird.
I read a joke recently that I can relate to: “We do not throw away perfectly good food in this house. We put it in Tupperware, wait for it to go bad, then we throw it away.” There are so many examples of “science projects” in our fridge over the years. Mashed potatoes turn pink, beans and broccoli are really smelly when they go bad, some food mold can be purple or blue and if you leave fruit juice long enough, you’ve made your own alcohol. Also, did you know that if you ignore the pre-sliced mozzarella logs, eventually the ongoing fermentation process will cause the bag to burst? That is a stinky mess to clean up. I also just learned that the national average for cleaning a fridge is about once every three to four months. I don’t think we could wait that long.
And can I just say how annoying (and yet how common) it is to have “someone” put a milk jug with a tablespoon of milk at the bottom back in the fridge, because they don’t want to put it in the trash? I don’t get it.
As we anticipate Thanksgiving for 30 people in less than two weeks, I’ve already started prepping, or at least planning, the shopping, the cooking and the assigning of tasks and food to the adults. As always, we will cook two turkeys — one in the smoker and one in an electric roasting pan, so that we have enough for leftovers. I often think about trying one new dish, but usually, they don’t go over very well. Brussels sprouts? A total bomb. Giblet dressing? Yuck. We’ll make ours from a box. We did switch from yams with marshmallows to a yam soufflé with a moderate amount of success. Maybe this year, I’ll try adding in a new appetizer — a baked brie, or a pomegranate cheese ball. Or maybe not.
Prepping for Thanksgiving means a lot of planning, working backwards from the time we want to eat. Before I learned that, we sometimes ate Thanksgiving dinner at 9 p.m. Not ideal. Thanksgiving also means buying and using a ridiculous amount of butter, cream and cream cheese, plus of course turkey, veggies, boxes of stuffing, cranberries and all the things. Thanksgiving Day means hours of cooking, minutes of eating and hours of dishes. Our two dishwashers get a workout, although this year, I bought paper plates. We’ll see if I chicken out and use the china instead.
Thanksgiving is a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of love. Cooking and feeding “my people” is one way I show love. At least some of that desire to feed my family well stems from adopting children who had been hungry for most of their lives before they joined us. We may have skimped on other things, but we always had plenty of food around.
We have other traditions around Thanksgiving as well. We always begin a Lord of the Rings (extended editions!) marathon, starting with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and ending with “Return of the King.” My husband starts a jigsaw puzzle and we play games like “The Great Dalmuti,” “Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow,” “Uno,” and for the ones who want a game that goes on forever, “Risk.” We used to do early morning Black Friday shopping, but I’ve now switched over to online shopping and get to sleep in and stay warm. Win-win.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fridge to clean.