full freezer of jeff yeager, with pantyhose, food, mask

It’s official: I’ve become my grandmother. I realized it the other morning when I opened the door to our freezer.

That icy vault was packed to the brim. But — in the finest tradition of my Grandma Yeager — it wasn’t filled so much with leftovers, like you’d find in most household freezers. You see, my Grams had a few deep frozen secrets. She knew about weird stuff; weird stuff you can deep-six in the freezer and maybe save some money in the process.

* Candles: Keep your wax candles in the freezer and they’ll burn longer. It’s especially good for slim table tapers that normally burn very fast.

* Batteries: A number of studies have shown that storing batteries in the freezer helps them retain their charge longer. This is less true for alkaline batteries (freezing extends their shelf life by only about 5%) than it is for NiMH and Nicad batteries often used in electronics. Keeping NiMH batteries in the freezer can boost battery life by 90%.

* Plant Seeds: Many (but not all) types of plant seeds will keep longer and germinate more successfully when stored in the freezer. Consult a copy of Seed Storage of Horticultural Crops, by S.D. Doijode, for more than you’d ever want to know about this fascinating topic. Many of the planet’s most important seeds are being stored in the chilly “doomsday” seed vault in Norway.

* Cheap Booze: In the interest of full disclosure, my Grams was a teetotaler. Me, I need an attitude adjustment from time to time, and I’ve found that storing cheap booze — not just vodka, but all types of distilled spirits — in the freezer makes it taste smoother (and more expensive).

* Wine Cubes: Speaking of keeping alcohol in the freezer, when you have a little leftover wine from dinner, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. “Wine cubes” are perfect to use in making stock and other cooking.

* Plastic Soda Bottles Filled with Water: Grandma knew that keeping her freezer chockfull helped to insulate it and perform better, and kept things cold longer if the electricity failed. I like to fill empty plastic soda bottles nearly full with water, and put them in the freezer to take up any vacant space. Plus they make convenient “drip-less ice cubes” to use instead of real ice cubes in my ice chest.

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