Monday, March 23, 2009

Warm Milk

When you think of warm milk, you probably think of comfort. That special cup to help you sleep, or a warm chocolate milk on a cold winter's day.

But all warm milk is not good. Particularly warm milk found on a Monday morning inside the refrigerator. This is not warm milk you wish to find and this is definitely not the warm milk you want to drink! But, it's exactly what we found this morning! Yes, our refrigerator decided to die. It gave up. It's not like we ever gave it too much to do really - a few cartons of milk, some iced tea, jar of mayonnaise and some cheese. But I guess all of that was just too much to handle - perhaps my gallon jugs of iced tea did it in.

If you're in the US, then for you, your choices of refrigerator look like this selection (thank you, BestBuy):



However, here in Denmark, your choice of refrigerator looks like this:



In fairness, it IS possible to purchase a side by side model - they call them "Amerikanerskab", and they run anywhere from $2000 to $6000, depending on what features you'd like your American refrigerator to have!

So today at lunchtime, we made a quick trip to punkt1 in Herning to see what they had. We googled first, of course, because that's what computer people do - google everything first. They had one in their netshop on sale but we definitely wanted to see it in person, so off we went. They didn't have that exact model in the store, but they did have the 'beer' version. It's a similar model, but it has a big huge beer tap on the front of the refrigerator, and a spot inside to apparently place a small keg. Ummm, no, we didn't get that one!

One thing that I definitely wanted, and one thing that is NOT standard in Denmark, is a frost-free freezer. It baffles me that it's not standard and that every refrigerator on the market these days isn't frost free, but I guess that the frost-free variety is not as energy efficient and selling appliances in Europe all comes down to the magic letter. And in this case, it had to be either A or A+. I wonder how 'energy efficient' it is to spend a day scraping the ice off the freezer. I don't see anyone touting it as the 'new' way to exercise!

We did end up purchasing the one that was shown online and the nice folks at punkt1 are bringing it over to us on Wednesday.

In the meantime, we're defrosting the current model because, while the refrigerator itself died, the freezer just kept on trucking. Everything has been moved into a cooler and is sitting on our terrace - it's a bit odd to go outside to get a glass of juice! And, for once, I am happy that the Danish weather has decided to hover around 40 deg F!

7 comments:

  1. I used to be a bit high maintenance...wanting all the "good things" in life..lol...now all I want is an ICE MAKER that is indoors!!

    We have my grandmas ice trays in the freezer in the basement...but you gotta go outside to get them! UGH!!

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  2. Hahaha, yea even in Singapore, we get bigger and better fridges than the variety here- the energy efficiency thing seems to play a big role in that.

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  3. We have an 'American' side by side with ice maker and iced water dispenser. I don't know how long we'll have it though because it must be really expensive to run. We bought it 'second hand'. Someone else had bought it on a whim, realised how out of place it looks in a Danish kitchen (people wince when they see it, it's just such a decadent object) and sold it on in a hurry and for less than 3000 kroners.

    Apparently there isn't a huge market for a fridge that actually does more than hide away the milk.

    But hey, they kids are having great fun having ice with everything.

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  4. Oh dear, first the heater and now this!

    I remember when Peter's parents came to the US 2 years ago, and they went crazy for our fridge with the water/ice dispenser. They thought that was the best thing ever. :-)

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  5. Frost-freeze is definitely on my wish list.

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  6. Ah, yes, that one European family food refrigeration unit. We have one too.

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  7. We bought a BOSCH a year and a half ago that is an A+ and frost free, so they are out there. We picked ours up at ElGiganten (or however you spell that place LOL) I enjoy reading your blog, I am a Canadian that has been living in Copenhagen for 11 years. :)

    http://allaboutmeandabagofchips.typepad.com/my_weblog/

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