Sadly, I do not have the life of leisure that includes a fleet of domestic servants or, perhaps, some kind of minions, all waiting with bated breath for my next command, and as such, my glamorous life involves a lot of drudgery like laundry (which inside my head I always think of as "fucking laundry" because it never ends and might just be some kind of housework purgatory) and grocery shopping.

I used to enjoy grocery shopping, quite honestly, but that's because my first time out on my own, I was thrilled by the fact that I could go into a store and there were choices to make, so many possibilities not limited to whatever was healthy or natural or allowed in our house by my thrifty hippy authority figures. If I wanted hard salami, I could get hard salami, even though it was filled with nitrates and sodium and who knows what the hell those little white specks were. I was drunk with power. Hostess cupcakes? Of course. A mango? Certainly! Out of season bing cherries that cost $13/lb? Yes please!

Sadly, the thrill is gone and I've grown to avoid the store. Esteban is good at the grocery store. He takes a list, buys exactly what's on it plus one bucket of mini chocolate chip cookies (the man has a weakness) and then we have no fruits or vegetables for a week. As such, we switch off and make lists for each other. It's been my turn to go to the store for about a month now, with our stock dwindling down slowly until the cupboard, she was bare, and Esteban exercised right of veto and threatened to withhold sex (or go to the store himself) if I didn't get my act in gear and pick up a few things. Here's his list:

From: Esteban
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 2:11 PM
To: Weetabix
Subject: Grocery List

Cottage Cheese
Tortillas--Viva La Mexico!
Something to fill the tortillas with. Like MEAT. I like meat. I don't know if we have refried beans and the Red Sauce of Mexico or not.
12 pack of seltzer water, Klarbrunn preferably (SELTZER FTW!)
Dozen eggs--I can't make pancakes or cookies without them.
2 lbs. chocolate chips for cookies. Oh, baby!
Some Chixx0r breasts would be nice for tonight.
Red (Communist) potatoes
Pork chops--we haven't eaten the Other White Meat in some time...I can grill these...
Chef Fat Dude Pork Chop Seasoning--might not be enough for the pork chops. I can't remember Fat Dude's name. I think it's French. Or Scottish. "Chef Angus MacEachthighearna" or something.*
Three boxes of Comrade Arm and Hammer Baking Soda (mostly for the fridge, I used the one I use for cooking in there.)
We have sour cream and shredded cheeses as well as whole cheeses.

*(That would be Chef Paul Prudhomme. Who does not appear to be Scottish.)

Here's the end result (click on the picture to expand). Given that this fridge started with condiments, two tubs of light sour cream, a bunch of cheese (in the drawer in the middle) a single bottle of wine (in the back) and a bunch of Esteban's beer (in the drawer on the right), you can see that I embellished the list quite a bit, but you can really tell a lot about us by the look of our fridge (sadly, this picture cuts off the door and the left side of the fridge, so you just can't see some cottage cheese, a package of extra firm tofu, a Galia melon, condiments and some skim milk). You can tell that we dally with tofu, clearly create most of our meals from scratch--as there's not a lot of pre-made anything in there--and obviously, we don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables and also, wow, we drink a lot of tasty beverages. I'm sort of glad that we have a separate wine cooler thingy because you can't see how many bottles we have at the ready.

I'm nosey, so I asked the other contributors here on Elastic Waist what's in their fridge. These belong to Anne, Sarah, Susan (the editrix and mastermind of Elastic Waist) and Ricky (the only guy on our crew, he's also the Nutrition Data hotline hottie on the Out To Lunch videos). Sadly, Brooke is on vacation and did not take along her refrigerator, so we don't have a peek behind her food scene. To help with the demographics, Anne and Ricky are fanciful singles, Sarah is co-habitating with her gorgeous fiancé Sebastian, and Susan has a spouse and two kiddos. Can you guess which fridge belongs to which person?

Fridge A

Fridge B

Fridge C

Fridge D

Post your guesses in the comments!