And the second day of Advent....

For Advent: Day 2

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now, perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." from Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

And in blogging news:
So there are a few earth shattering things I've learned about food while traveling.

The first is that you really don't need a refrigerator. After this experience of living without electricity and most useful things I've found there are quite a few modern appliances that I would consider either essential (hot water heater!!!) or very, very helpful (washing machine, sometimes a clothes dryer when you live in a place that rains 6 days out of the week and the 7th day is too cold to dry anything, a blender, an electric saw.) However, there is one thing that I don't miss and that is the refrigerator. Honestly, I don't miss it at all. There has never been a moment where I've said, "oh man! if only we had a refrigerator!" In fact my fruit tastes a whole lot better. I never realized how much the coldness of the refrigerator takes away from the pleasure of eating a piece of fruit. And I've never been a fan of the smell of the refrigerator either.

Now growing up in the States and taking home economics class I learned that a refrigerator was absolutely essential. The message I picked up on in class was that not having a frig was like asking for salmonella poisoning, ruined vegetables before I had the chance to eat them and a lower quality of life. So that's why I say it was Earth-shattering to learn through my lack of having a frig that it is not essential.

• Eggs don't need to be refrigerated (even in the summer - ours never went bad and the oldest egg we had was 4 weeks old.) And we've had both the lovely fresh chicken eggs from our neighbor chickens that ate our kitchen scraps as well as the not so nice eggs from the grocery store that I'm embarrassed to even say we've bought. In most places of the world eggs are not sold in the refrigerated section of the grocery store (actually the USA is the only country I've ever seen them in the refrigerator)
• Vegetables - surprisingly the trickiest part about not having a fridge, but absolutely do-able. You just have to think about what you're buying when you're at the market. In Spain, chard/kale gets less desirable after two days, carrots about 3 days, lettuces if freshened up every now and again with some water last 4 days or so, eggplants 5/6 days, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and garlic last weeks. And really, vegetables loose their nutritional value with each moment they spend in storage anyway. Best to eat them fresh! So you might then say- "I only go grocery shopping once a week." And I would say, "that's perfect!" I rode to the market on my bike only once a week because my legs couldn't bear to ride the 20 km any more than that. Somehow it always managed to work. We ate the meals with the most perishable food sooner and saved the veggies that last longer for later in the week! And you can always cook up a meal  and then that extends the life of the veggie because here's another shocker - you don't need to refrigerate left overs! (more in the next bullet)
• At first, this totally grossed me out. I couldn't do it. I tried to just be really good about guessing how much to cook and avoid at all costs having anything left over. And whenever there would be something to save my mind would start to race with visions of little bacteria multiplying and infesting my dish with their evil germs. But, leftovers happened. And then happened again, and again and again. And guess what? I'm still here. I have gotten food poisoning from other things, but not yet from leftovers! The secret is to keep it covered, eat it in the next day or two (sometimes three) and make sure to cook it through. That and smell it first. And if you have an overactive imagination, then have someone who's not a germ-a-phobe smell it instead. (The mind can most certainly play tricks on you.)
• Another super shocker. I know you're not going to believe me. Maybe even think it's dangerous of me to say. But I'm going to say it anyway. You don't need a refrigerator even if you want to include meat in your diet. I know, I know. It's heresy. But seriously. Slowly, over time meat has found it's way into our kitchen. As a used-to-be-vegetarian I thought I would never find a hunk of flesh in my kitchen. But, well I'm in Spain. It's normal to have a meal with every type of animal category included and only one vegetable. Anyway, you still don't need a fridge. Just buy the meat fresh from the market the day (or day before) you want to cook it. Apologies to any vegetarians, but I'm going to list the types of meat we've had experience with just for examples. Chicken, beef, cod and squid have all made their way into our bellies with no ill effects and no refrigeration. Best if kept in a shady place and most certainly covered. Same smell rule applies. And there is a slime rule with this one too. If it's slimy-shiny it's a no-go. And yes you can eat it as unrefrigerated leftovers too! And they say you should limit your meat intake anyway, so one or two meat meals a week is probably right on.
• Butter, peanut butter, tahini, olives, vinegar,  opened jars of tomato sauce (if used within a few days) all don't need a refrigerator. 

All that being said. I get not every place is the same. For us it's worked. In Madrid, it's hot, but it's dry. In Galicia we did it with very humid weather, but not too much hot weather. So maybe your place needs a refrigerator. That and we don't eat dairy. Cheese gets sweaty out of the fridge and well milk is probably an item that must be kept cold. And I get it wouldn't work for everyone, but wouldn't it be cool, if we all reduced what we did put in the fridge and then we could have smaller refrigerators that wouldn't use as much energy?!

(our not at all refrigerator - refrigerator....it's a wooden fruit box we salvaged from the recycling at the farmers market.)

(breakfast of toast, tomato salad and an egg - all unrefrigerated!)