RB's Profile

My messiest kitchen accident is one that I don't even remember, but it's become family legend by now and I have no reason to assume that it's not true. Supposedly, when I was four years old I was asked to go down to the basement pantry and bring back a bottle of orange soda. I got the bottle and handed it to my mother to open, when it promptly exploded all over the question. Why did it explode? Because I vigorously shook it on my way back upstairs. Why did I shake it? Because it was orange, of course, and everyone knows that you're supposed to shake orange-flavored things, i.e., orange juice. Hey, I was four years old. It made sense then.

My roommate and I recently repainted our living room. We were going for a nice, warm neutral that our landlord would be unlikely to make us repaint. We've since taking to calling the color of our walls "badly beaten Caucasian," which I think says enough.

On the other hand, the walls in my bedroom - a soft purple that leans towards grey - is absolutely lovely and surprisingly mature. You know, for purple.

My local Shop Rite (in Northern NJ) has Hale and Hearty soups at the salad bar. The few times I've had them, they've been delicious.

More often though, I use the soups there for inspiration. Each soup is displayed with a tag that lists a complete list of ingredients, and it's a great way to get an idea for both classic and new flavor combinations. What's more, their short and simple ingredient lists are a great reminder of how easy it is to make your own soup!

I absolutely love the idea of it, since it would completely solve the problem I'm currently having in finding a reading lamp. I have no room for bedside tables, and all the clip-on lamps for my headboard are hideously ugly. Still, I get apartment centipedes, and I have a feeling I would see this light in the middle of the night, freak out, and beat it with a pillow until it dies, which probably wouldn't be good for the light.

Budino - I had to figure out the same thing in a small but bright Philadelphia kitchen a few years ago. Dark and cool is definitely the right way to go, but the really important thing is to keep the potatoes and onions away from each other. There's a scientific explanation that maybe someone else can expound on, but storing them together makes them both go rotten faster.

My question: when living alone and mostly cooking for one, what do you do about perishables? I love eating a variety of vegetables, but then I find myself with waste that I don't know what to do with. Sometimes I'll just pick out two vegetables and eat them the whole week until they're gone, but that gets boring. Any tips?