So there we were with this lovely pot of Red Beans and Rice- almost 4 quarts of it- and our fridge decided to take its last gasp. When we awoke the next morning the fridge temperature was in the balmy 65 degree zone.  I would have gladly taken 65F for the temperature in my house that morning- but it is not one that is desirable in a fridge.  For some reason the freezer was working fine but the entire contents of the fridge side had to be thrown out. Ooh I hate throwing out food! 🙁

We should have known it was coming. We bought the Jenn-Air side by side in 2001, when we were remodeling our kitchen. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it has been a hate-hate relationship ever since it darkened our door. Rick has had murderous fantasies of fridge torture and dis-membership- which just shows how far a sweet, even tempered and all around good guy can be pushed by an appliance.  He would get excited every time one of the new LG ads showing people destroying their old appliances to make way for a new one would come on.  He even offered to pay the new fridge delivery guys if they would chain the Jenn-Air and drag it behind their truck-just so he could laugh madly and delight in the demise of the evil fridge.  Don’t say the words “Jenn-Air” near us -or our heads start to spin and we begin to babble incoherently.

We had constant temperature  problems from the first- the crisper (in-affectionately referred to as “the rotter”) constantly froze the veggies and any thing placed next to the common wall between the freezer and the fridge had a similar fate.  The ice maker would jam if you tried to go back and forth between crushed and cubed ice. We had the repair guy out twice and before he would get to the end of our street the problem would return. We finally left it permanently on “crushed” to prevent having to disassemble the whole ice maker unit each time we wanted to dispense ice.

Then there was the lake er leak. The water line developed a leak so we shut off the water and did without ice or water in the door at all. Unfortunately then the fridge decided to “pee” on the floor on a regular basis. It was worse than house training a new puppy.  Rick is still checking the floor in front of the new fridge every time we come into the kitchen from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder type conditioning.

SO… okay enough  with the woe. We had to replace the fridge so we went out and bought a new GE Profile French door fridge. I hope it has better Mojo. We like it so far, although we are still getting over the sticker shock and the blow to our yearly budget.  The first fridge that was delivered had a door alignment problem so the  store we bought if from decided to deliver a new fridge a few days later instead of sending out a repair tech to adjust it. So we’re hoping the third fridge in this space is the charm.

It makes me frustrated to think that fridges are basically made by only three manufacturers and that they intentionally don’t work out the engineering before placing the product on the market- preferring to save the research and development dollars and let the poor sucker of the consumer deal with the lemons in “an acceptable failure rate”. Whatever happened to the idea of putting out a quality product? Greed ate it I guess.

In the end- after all the grief, we’re delighted to have a new fridge. This one seems to hold its temperatures so far and also is a bit more user friendly space wise.

We were mourning over the loss of our Red Beans and Rice so finally we looked at each other and said “let’s just make another batch -why not?”

It involved baking another ham:

One ten pound bone in cured ham, bake two hours at 350F covered with foil. Remove foil, remove skin and most of fat from ham and then brush with 1/4 cup bourbon mixed with 1 Tablespoon dry mustard, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 Tablespoons honey and 1 Tablespoon molasses. Return to oven for another hour or until internal temperature reaches 160F. Baste often to prevent ham from drying out or glaze from burning.

…and also buying more Andouille- but I think it was worth it. We hope we’re back on track now. We have a nice container of deliciousness in the new fridge and so far everything is going well. The evil Jenn Air is on the porch waiting for the recycling guys to come get it on Friday

Anyone know a good voodoo fridge charm?