Fridge Love

by Kristen Hong

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Fridge Love: Organize Your Refrigerator for a Healthier, Happier Life is an impressively organized guide to arranging readers' fridges for efficiency and meal-planning by Kristen Hong. Due out 1st Feb 2022 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on their Mariner Books imprint, it's 352 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is an upbeat and impressively organized book. Most of the time I just look at extreme cleaning and organizational books and get stressed out because that's absolutely not me (side eying you, Marie Kondo). This one is actually more inspiring than stressful and I found a lot of good and usable takeaways here.

The book follows a logical format. Part 1 covers the background and benefits of organization, prepping, meal-prep and planning, and the author offers different ways of looking at and evaluating personal needs to build a plan to get (and stay) organized. The second section offers a look at how to clean, organize, and set up the plans and processes. This part made me tired. She's so encouraging and upbeat that I -am- going to try to start and this is a good time to do it (new year, etc), but honestly the instagram color coordinated -spotless- fridge pictures kinda got me down because my fridge looks like the "before" part of an episode of hoarders. The rest of the book builds on the intro sections with practical plans for incorporating the procedures into daily life. She makes some good points about living in a family where not everyone follows the same sort of diet (nutrient rich meatless diet in her case). This would work well in a family where one person is on other types of food restrictions, low FODMAP, or anti-inflammatory, or diabetic, etc. The book is rounded out with recipes which are perfectly suited to meal-prep and planning/storage.

The recipes have their ingredients listed bullet style in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard only. Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. The ingredients will -mostly- be easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store. There are some few which may need specialty retailers or a larger metropolitan area/international grocer. Nutritional information is not included, but the storage suggestions are specific and appropriate.

The photography is sufficient but not abundant; roughly 10% of the recipes are pictured. The photos which are included in the cookbook are well done, clear, appealing, and (for tutorial photos) easy to follow. The photos in the introduction and basic planning sections of the book are abundant and beautifully color coordinated and immaculately styled.

Well done. This book would make a great gift for fans of food prep planning / batch cooking, as well as readers who enjoy organizing manuals à la Marie Kondo.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.