I don’t know if it was me taking out a frozen vegetable for dinner or my husband getting an ice cream bar later, but the freezer door was ajar all night, enough to half-thaw EVERYTHING—bread, rolls, muffins, the last of last summer’s tomatoes, my recipe-ready parsley, hamburger, and a whole chicken. I threw out the chicken, parsley, and soggy breads, but I had wrapped the burgers and the solid pound of hamburger myself in foil, and they seemed fine, if half-thawed. We’re eating the burgers tonight, and the solid pound was made into a quick pasta sauce for tomorrow. Maybe the chicken would have been okay, but we decided not to take any chances with poultry, since there were a lot of ice crystals inside the sealed packaging.

The whole freezer was just dripping, even though it must have run all night, and when I say ajar, I mean that it wasn’t noticeable until I put my hand on the door and it pushed in. It could have been as long as 12 hours in that state. So, the freezer starts from scratch, even with new ice cubes—the old ones were still mostly frozen but in one large block.

Closing the freezer door all the way—another thing to remember.