By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Some weeks ago, I asked to hear your refrigerator horror stories, and your solutions to the ever-present problem of the overfull appliance.

Lynn Fragras wrote to say that condiments are her refrigerator downfall — all those little jars and squeeze bottles and pots of this and that take up most of the space. She might dump some of these when she moves soon. But one thing that's lurking at the back of her Amana (and yes, it is an Amana) is a jar of pickled mango, one of many she made about a month after her son left for Iraq a year ago. She sent several jars to him, but they didn't make it through the long, slooow delivery process to the front. So she's saving one jar to be sure he has some of his favorite when he gets home. This jar goes with her. "Some things we simply can't get rid of," she said.

But we can forget them, as Jeff Kino did with a loaf of his mother's Christmas fruitcake until, driven by his sweet tooth one night, he fought the avalanche all the way to the back of his freezer. "It looked good, smelled good and eventually tasted good. Wasn't freezer-burned or spoiled as one might think, considering it is at least five years old," he wrote. Heck, I think you could leave some fruitcakes on the counter and nothing living would go near them, but that's another story.

Another time, Kino came across a plastic container and realized it was one he'd been looking for for a couple of years. When he opened it, the contents "looked like Swiss steak, but I don't remember making Swiss steak in a very, very long time." It's amazing that it looked like anything except some form of primordial ooze.

Kino says he's found a great way to keep his crisper drawers lined: he just leaves the plastic bags spread on the bottom when he removes produce to use it. When the bags get gunky, he throws them away, adding others as he buys fruits and vegetables.

Rachel Haruno wrote to say she and her husband were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary and this year once again they will not be eating the top of their wedding cake, which lives somewhere in the deep recesses of her parents' freezer. "As the tradition goes, we had planned to eat it on our first anniversary but never did. At this point, I don't think we will ever throw it out or eat it!"

Margaret Oshiro of Kailua is full of ideas for organizing the refrigerator. She placed a basket on one of the shelves and stores all her fresh vegetables in it. "When you are ready to cook, just take the whole basket to the counter and look through. Have not forgotten any little bag of peas or sprouts since," she wrote. As to the freezer, there she uses open boxes in which to store zip bags, foil-wrapped foods and jars, divided by category (Shintani foods, baking, entree, side dish, etc.). "When you need something, just lift the box to the counter. The idea is you can stuff the freezer full and the bag, jars, boxes don't fall out." You can keep a running tab of the contents in the box if you remember to cross things off as you use them up.

But Ralph Scrivano of Kailua gets the prize for the oddest thing to find in the fridge — or he would if we had one. He went off on a trip and came home to find his wife painting the interior of the house. Wanting to pitch in, the morning after he got home, he asked where the brush and rollers were. "In the crisper," his wife replied. "Where?????" he asked, thinking she'd mis-heard him or perhaps he'd mis-heard her. "In the fridge crisper," she said with more emphasis. And sure enough, there was the roller wrapped in a plastic bag, "as fresh as can be. You don't have to clean them every day" because the paint doesn't dry out, he reported.

Thanks for the day's chuckle, Ralph.