In the half-year since we’ve been back in San Francisco and resumed a life many would call “normal”, I’ve noticed that our refrigerator habits appear anything but. I’m starting to think that’s because we spent a year without one—and have yet to “recover”. Imagine a year without cooking (other than a handful of cooking classes), a year without leftovers, a year without being able to preserve food from one day to the next.

You can probably guess that our fridge is almost always empty. Like bachelor-empty. In fact every two weeks, just before we go grocery shopping, it’s completely empty, except for a lone stick of butter and a jar of mustard. This has a lot to do with our shopping and cooking habits—we’ve almost completely stopped buying “refrigerate after opening” and frozen foods. We rarely cook enough for leftovers, though when we do, they get incorporated into meals the following night or two.

What we do keep in the fridge are the things that need frequent replenishing: vegetables, cheese, yogurt, white wine, mustard, eggs, and butter.

It’s like we’re using our fridge more like a root cellar, and less like a black hole. All this makes me wonder about refrigerator design, and whether there are any models optimized more for keeping fresh vegetables fresh, and less for keeping giant bottles of soda cold? Might such a fridge be more energy efficient?

As it turns out, our “new-to-us” fridge has two humidity-adjustable “crispers” and one short but wide temperature-adjustable “chef’s pantry” (whatever that means). Unfortunately one of the pantry lid hinge pegs had broken off, so in my new role as a homeowner, I ordered and installed a new left hand side refrigerator pantry drawer support. How hot is that?