{"id":138510,"date":"2019-08-06T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=138510"},"modified":"2019-08-05T17:43:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T21:43:31","slug":"writers-fridges-jia-tolentino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/06\/writers-fridges-jia-tolentino\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers\u2019 Fridges: Jia Tolentino"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our series\u00a0Writers\u2019 Fridges<\/a>, we bring you snapshots of the abyss that writers stare into most frequently: their refrigerators.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I just realized, having never before had an occasion to consider my thoughts on the matter, that I feel incredibly fond of the front of my fridge. Life should be more like the front of my fridge: entirely made up of postcards from your friends, pictures of babies, an upside-down magazine photo of a rocket launch from a seventies aviation magazine, old aura readings, photos of when you blacked out at a Pistons game watching Fat Joe (no longer fat) play at halftime, novelty magnets that remind you of everywhere you\u2019ve been that you love. The best thing on this fridge is a magnetic sheet featuring four incredible photos of my friend Jackson\u2014it was a Christmas present from Jackson\u2019s partner, Kate. Mostly when I go to the fridge, though, the only thing that registers for me visually is a glimpse of my dog Luna\u2019s fluffy puppy face.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Inside, my fridge\u2019s vibe is almost always \u201clast night\u2019s dinner plus snacks.\u201d If I lived almost anywhere else, I\u2019d probably be working less and cooking constantly, and my fridge would always be bursting with some Martha Stewart shit, pizza dough and herbs and iced green tea with honey, as it was in Texas and Michigan. But here it\u2019s like, we got some eggs, we got that bodega Vermont cheddar, we got Simply Orange so I can choke down my vitamins in the morning, we got limes that have turned into moldy rocks since the party.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s always garlic, lemons, and half-and-half. I went like a decade drinking mostly black coffee, and then one morning I woke up and had no idea why it had literally n<\/em>ever\u00a0<\/i>occurred to me to keep half-and-half in the house. There\u2019s usually some struggle fruit (cherries and strawberries, right now) to keep me from exclusively eating various combinations of bread, prosciutto, avocado, eggs, cheese, and butter all day. Right now there are two comforting Tupperwares full of a genre of pasta that my partner, Andrew, and I have made at least monthly for the past nine years; this specific one is rigatoni, two bunches of kale, burst cherry tomatoes, Italian sausage, and parmesan. The beer is Andrew\u2019s\u2014if I\u2019m drinking anything at home, which I almost never am unless people are over, it\u2019s red wine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The fridge door is full of old milk bottles from Michigan\u2014we lived a five-minute walk from an amazing, overpriced place called the Produce Station, where there were all these plants for sale outside and Andrew would always get milk in a glass bottle (he loves milk, it\u2019s awful). We\u2019ve kept them to use as water bottles. I love them\u2014I go through four or five of them every day\u2014but it freaks people out sometimes; I guess the repurposing of milk paraphernalia feels vaguely profane. In the little butter area, the ziplock bag full of soy sauce packets from the sushi place is really ballooning. What am I going to do with these packets?! Hopefully one day I\u2019ll run out of actual soy sauce and use all of those packets at once. There are two types of Cholula (though I prefer Tapat\u00edo). And\u2014an important warning for anyone who visits this apartment\u2014the peanut butter in my fridge is gross. The only thing that happens with it is that we swipe it out with our fingers for Luna, so that she\u2019ll take her seizure medication. I don\u2019t mind having only doggie\/finger peanut butter. I can\u2019t stand to eat peanut butter. I\u2019ve never liked it, and the only times in my life I have ever eaten it outside baked goods or sauces were days in college when I needed something to help me swallow the shrooms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at <\/em>The New Yorker and the author of the essay collection <\/em>Trick Mirror.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We bring you snapshots of the abyss that writers stare into most frequently: their refrigerators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1816,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33520],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-fridges"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWriters\u2019 Fridges: Jia Tolentino by Jia Tolentino<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 6, 2019 \u2013 We bring you snapshots of the abyss that writers stare into most frequently: their refrigerators.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/06\/writers-fridges-jia-tolentino\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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