Refrigerator Organising: Masala Magic

Anybody who knows me well (there aren’t that many people who do) will know how much I love to clean my refridgerator. Uhhh… correction….replace’ love to’ with ‘need to’. This is one space I end up organizing and cleaning twice a week.

When I make my organizing calendar I put refridgerator cleaning as a by-monthly task. But it ends up becoming a by-weekly one. The reason for this I realized is because there are so many users to this space. Domestic help, husband, kids, guests.

There have been times when I come home tired and go fuming mad to see the cheese not in the dairy basket or the jam in the pickle basket or leftover kept uncovered. But over time I’ve realized that this is my OCD and others don’t have to deal with it. Everybody just cannot have the same vision as me as far as organizing my fridge is concerned.

There have been times when I felt like taking out all the days potential supplies and placing them on the counter, child (read husband/maid) locking was also considered, I even day dreamed about standing by the fridge dressed in palace guard costume handing out items so that none else touches the refrigerator.

But of course none of this is possible in the interest of greater sanity. On second though I would have considered being a refrigerator guard if that as a career option, but alas it isn’t

So given that I have multiple people access the space (and I’m grateful that they do so that I am not reduced to a fridge cleaning, ingredient vending, human mom machine), I have to be willing to deal with the aftermath of the mess that is left behind.

The most annoying thing I find about a messy refridgerator is.. (correction: it is ‘one’ of the most annoying, I’ll do more posts on the other ‘most annoying things’) when the domestic help leaves half used masala packets in the fridge.. Earlier they would leave it open but then after some counselling (yes counselling, messiness is a psychological problem in my mind) they managed to remember to seal the packet with pins. Not always .. but they managed sometimes.

Until I found these pretty mason jar shaped zip lock pouches. Now none of the masalas are kept open. They are put away in these jars and stacked up neatly in the corner in the door tray. I write the name of the masala with the marker on the top or they cut a snippet from the masala packet and drop it in.

The rest of the fridge is a mess most of the time but at least this one corner is pretty enough to make me smile.