all photos: Kimberly Cadena

May is FOOD MONTH on BYT (after SEX, focusing only on life’s necessities with our themes) and as such you can expect a visual overload of food posts. One of the regular columns we plan to have is: WHAT’S IN YOUR FRIDGE; where we explore the window to everyone’s soul: the contents of their fridge/freezer.
We will be intruding onto the kitchens local people of note, readers, food critics and chefs, pr people and beyond.

Today: We try something different and step into Miriam's Kitchen fridge (room).

Things you should know before we start: Miriam's Kitchen is located at 2401 Virginia Ave, NW and has been serving healthy meals to the needy since 1983.  Every day, they put a healthy breakfast and dinner in front of about 400 people (they also do lunches on Wednesday), and are the only co-ed place for families in need to eat together at. Each meal is prepared by a team of full time chefs and volunteers and most of the food is donated by local stores and farmer's markets. A week or so a go, after we ran out article on Washingtonian's Todd Kliman's fridge, they wrote to us and invited us to see "what's inside their "non-soup kitchen", soup kitchen fridge" and we jumped at the chance to both poke around and shed some light on this great institution.

If you want to get involved: Attend one of their fundraising events ("100 Bowls of Compassion" benefit happens tonight @ National Building Museum, There is a CD Release benefit for them on May 29th at Velvet Lounge, and/or Learn about volunteer opportunities here or Donate online

Here is what we saw:

Well it certainly is a big room (we walk in, one of the chefs looks at us and says "So, you're the people that poke around everyone's fridges?", we not, and he says "You're gonna need bigger sweaters (for ours)"

On the left hand side: A wall of fruits and vegetables: eggplants, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, sliced tomatoes, limes, lemons, green salad, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes. Dinner, apparently, is NEVER exactly the same, since the chefs like to mix things up, but they try to keep everything low in fat and sugar since a lot of their visitors have heart and diabetes issues.

Sharing the space with some of the veggies: Chicken fat for Paellas, Arugula Pesto, Beans, Chicken Broth, Hot Dog Buns, Myoplex, breakfast meats, Ketchup, Roux, Whole Grain Mustard, Ghee

And more sauces in the left, but further down: Raspberry Jam (with a note that says "KEEP OUT"), Lemon Curd, Lime Curd Plain Yogurt, Scallops Rub for Bowls, other Salad Rubs, BBQ sauces, Yogurt Marinade, Tamarind Sauces...

Moving into the back, and center: the dairy and bread isle: Real butter, heavy whipping cream, Cream Cheese, Milk, Whole Grain Bread, Sour Cream

bread crums, cilantro, and just on the right hand side-literally, A MILLION muffins (Miriam's kitchen has 2 pastry chefs, one of whom showed up during our fridge inspection and handed us the most darling little mango mouse/lime cakes)

Chicken and chicken by-products: boiled and otherwise

Just outside: the nut/dessert carts: Chopped Almonds, Roasted Pistacchios, Sugar, Boston Cocoa, Hershey's Cocoa, Flour, Cashews, Chocolate Chips, Raisins

And next door, their unrefrigerated pantry: wth the honeys, corn and maple syrups, canned food (in very limited numbers), all the paper and plasticware, and other non perishables.

Be glad DC has a place like this, and so capably and lovingly run. Learn more about Miriam's Kitchen here.

Previously on “What’s In Your Fridge?”:

• Josh Sisk, photographer, author of “Under the Strobe Light”
• Todd Kliman, food & wine editor of “Washingtonian”
• Josh Short, pastry chef of BUZZ Bakery
• Robb Duncan and Violeta Edelman of DOLCEZZA Gelato

Is there a fridge you’d like to see in here? Let us know in comments or at info@brightestyoungthings.com

Previously in What's In Your Fridge?:

• Whats In Your Fridge?: King Buzzo of the Melvins
• Matthew Lesko: To the Fridge and Beyond
• Eating with Caution: Tittsworth's Fridge
• What's In Your Fridge? Warren Brown of CakeLove
• What's In Your Fridge? Washington Post Food Editor Joe Yonan
• What's In Your Fridge? Nycci Nellis of TheListAreYouOnIt.com
• Whats In Your Fridge? Amanda McClements of Metrocurean
• What's In Your Fridge? New Director of Food Service for D.C. Public Schools, Jeffrey Mills
• What's In Your Fridge? (Top) Chef Spike Mendelsohn of "Good Stuff Eatery"
• What's In Your Fridge: Billy Klein of ST.EX