I just realized this: anyone who wants to date me, or even be good friends with me, must pass the refrigerator test. This is actually a two-way litmus test. If you look in my fridge and feel at home or at least intrigued, you will enjoy hanging out with me and vice versa. If what you see weirds you out or you make a face–and especially if you feel compelled to make fun of me–then we just don’t have a future.

So what might you see when you look in my Frigidaire?

Well, you’ll notice lots of containers. And not just a ketchup bottle filled with ketchup or those little yogurt containers with yogurt. You’ll probably see things like miso soup with mushrooms and seaweed floating around in it chillin’ in a tomato sauce jar, or homemade hummus in a container labeled Organic Valley Sour Cream. You’ll also see fresh herbs exploding from a mug of water, half an onion wrapped in one of those shower cap-looking bowl cover things (rinsed and re-used several times, of course), various vegetables and maybe a plum or grapefruit, an open package of papadams, and usually a bag of unidentifiable (to the untrained eye) Asian soy or rice product.

If you take a deep breath and open the freezer, yet more fun awaits you. You may see a few quarts of some frozen brown substance (that would be vegetable stock) and stuff that’s definitely not ice in the ice cube trays (that’s leftover coconut milk). Various flours and bulk fair trade coffee also reside there. Oh, and there’s some Hershey’s chocolate chips toward the back, and leftover Ben and Jerry’s. I didn’t say everything was weird.

The symbolism is rampant here. I won’t go into it too much, but instead say that my chaotic and esoteric food is me and I am it. The fridge says a lot about my likes and dislikes, my curiosities and passions. And yeah, it can be scary and odd. That’s just how I roll.

PS. H, you pass. FTW!