Life!

I'm not sure why it took me so long to learn this. Green things (as in, formerly living green things) need very specific housing conditions. Even though I've known this, I've still seen so many vegetables and herbs suffer a painful and early death (well, second death) due to my own negligence. For way too many years, I've stuffed these poor, helpless collections of produce into the refrigerator (the whole "crisper drawer" thing is, I'm finally learning, a bunch of baloney) and then been both surprised and cross every single time I pulled them out, so limp, smelly, and slimy. I suppose I just opted to suffer for all this time. Or maybe I didn't know how to fix this problem. That is, until last week, when I actually (gasp!) did some research to figure out how to keep these things fresh until they could be used. Here's what I learned:

One, asparagus needs to have its ends trimmed immediately, then it should be whisked out of its binding of rubberbands and placed upright in an inch and half of water in the refrigerator. I know it's a total pain, but if you change the water every other day, it will last even longer. Luckily, I use asparagus like it's on its way to extinction, so my asparagus is rarely around for long enough to need many water changes.

Two, drawers are too cold for most produce, especially delicate, leafy things. Put parsley and cilantro in glasses or jars with a little bit of water in the bottom. Trim these ends, too, and remove all binding of twist-ties or rubberbands. The front of the top shelf of the fridge is the least cold, so that is where herbs and things should go. These herbs might also like to be in glasses of water on your countertop. You might like them on your counter because they look so lovely, but you'll also like that you'll be much more likely to use them if they are sitting right there by your cutting board. Change the water every day if you can.

Three, don't even let that basil get NEAR the refrigerator. Don't let it even SEE the refrigerator with its little basil eyes, or smell the refrigerator with its little basil nose. Basil hates the cold. Trim its ends, unbind its stems, and put it in a shallow glass of water on the counter. I kid you not when I tell you that your basil will last for weeks this way. It will even start to root, and you will be so proud of it.

Four, there's nothing you can do for mint. My sources told me, countertop, in water. That didn't work. My sources told me top shelf fridge, in water, covered with plastic wrap. That didn't work. My sources told me, placed in a ziploc bag. That didn't work. After ending up with lots of heartbreakingly limp mint, I resorted back to my tried-and-true, all-time favorite method, which has now become my advice to you: make a pitcher of mint juleps as soon as you get home from the store and you won't need to store that mint at all. A-ha!