Freezer

Rogue ice had formed on the floor of the refrigerator freezer, and I was getting frosted. This was the household's backup fridge, one that sits in the basement. It had been moved there when a new first-line fridge took up residence in the kitchen some months back. It had become known as the "beer fridge," the place where brews, brats and other vital components of basement life were stashed. The machine started acting up right before Christmas -- the fridge wasn't cooling properly, and ice was forming, then melting on the freezer floor.

A Woodlawn truck driver was convicted yesterday of murdering his former girlfriend and hiding her body in his basement freezer for a year and 10 days, until his teen-age son found the body while looking for something to eat.The jury in the Baltimore County Circuit courtroom of Judge Lawrence R. Daniels convicted Corbett A. Powell, 42, of first-degree murder in the death of Deborah L. Blunt, a 7-Eleven clerk.During the three-day trial that began Tuesday, prosecutors Stephen Bailey and Marc Zayon presented evidence showing that Powell lied to police and to Blunt's relatives, saying he had no idea where she was after her disappearance May 9, 1998.

A body believed to be that of a Woodlawn woman missing for more than a year was found in her former boyfriend's freezer in the home they had shared, Baltimore County police said yesterday.Corbett A. Powell, 41, of the 7100 block of Bexhill Road, was charged with first-degree murder after police officers, who received information from a confidential informant, searched his house and found the frozen body of a female in a chest freezer in the basement, said police spokesman Cpl. Vickie Warehime.

Putting warm food in a freezer lowers the freezer's temperature, which can affect the stability of the other frozen foods in the compartment. Always cool food at least to room temperature before freezing. Chilled food freezes faster, and therefore tastes fresher when reheated.-- The Food Lover's Tiptionary

Chill out this Thanksgiving. After all, dinner is in the freezer. Or most of it, anyway.With a little planning, we found the holiday meal doesn't have to be a marathon of chopping, stirring and cooking before the hordes arrive. This year, we managed to tuck into our freezer ahead of time a cheese-ball appetizer, stock for the gravy, the dressing, a zucchini casserole, a sweet-potato dish, green beans, pumpkin-molasses muffins, ginger-honey butter, cranberry relish and a pumpkin tart.In a dress rehearsal, all we had to do was thaw out most of the dishes in the refrigerator overnight and pop them in the oven after the cooked turkey was removed.

A Baltimore County judge sentenced a Woodlawn truck driver to life in prison yesterday for killing his former girlfriend, noting that hiding her body in his basement freezer "was equally or more reprehensible than her murder."Baltimore County Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels told Corbett A. Powell, 42, that dumping Deborah L. Blunt's body in his freezer for a year and 10 days was "ignoring the grief of her family."Powell's sentence came less than a week after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder for shooting Blunt in the head during an argument May 9, 1998, at his Woodlawn home.

Ever wonder what to do with all of those mushroom stems they tell you to cut off and "reserve for another use"? Here a few suggestions:* Before putting stems in the freezer, slice them and squeeze them dry in a plain napkin. Do so by drawing the napkin up and around the stems, twisting the napkin until you have a tightly wrapped ball. Keep twisting the napkin until the mushroom juices run out. When done, open the napkin, and you will have a pile of mushrooms that will freeze better because there is no water in them to make them soggy when they thaw.

TODAY'S TOPIC IS: Domestic Tips From Guys.Guys do not get enough credit for being domestic. This is because the people who give out the credits for being domestic are - not to generalize or anything - women.Women tend to believe that domestic things should be done in a certain way, defined as "not the way guys do them." I have a perfect example of this type of thinking in the form of a letter I received from a woman named Karen in Portland, Ore., who does not approve of the way her fiance handles his dirty dishes.

"I really enjoyed 'The Jellybean Principal' by Catherine McMorrow. It is about three kids named Jim, Ellen and Judy and a principal who has a big bowl of jelly beans on his desk. In the story someone was stuck in the freezer and Jim, Ellen and Judy have to get him out. Who was in the freezer?"- Derek CooperLeith Walk Elementary"I like the book 'Meet Addy: An American Girl,' by Connie Porter because I learned a lot about the period of time when slavery was legal. Addy is afraid of getting separated from her family.

The grandmother of all convenience foods is the icebox (refrigerator) cookie. Predating boxed mixes and plastic tubes of ready-made dough, these cookies go back to the days when chilling food meant putting it on ice - literally - or, in cold climates, setting it out on the screened porch.As a category, refrigerator cookies are less work than cut-out cookies and more visually appealing than the drop or bar variety. Unlike molded or pressed cookies, refrigerator cookie dough is shaped immediately after mixing.

Anne Arundel County prosecutors said it is legal to not report a death and to put the body in a freezer - as was discovered in a Glen Burnie apartment over the weekend - leading legislators in the county's delegation to consider a new round of efforts to make it against the law. On Friday night, police were called to an apartment in the 7400 block of Furnace Branch Road because the body of Doris Lea Cooke, 83, who had been ailing and bedridden for years,...

Before a vote to cut trash collection to once a week, Baltimore City Councilman Nick D'Adamo didn't just raise the specter of illegal dumping. He copped to it. D'Adamo announced at a City Council meeting this week that after he and his family polish off a crab dinner, they don't wait for the trash truck to come along to get rid of the shells. "When I eat crabs, I take it to the closest Dumpster," D'Adamo said, according to The Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey. "Or I take them to the nearest municipal trash can."

Phillip Garrett remembers the day he spotted her walking down the street - her pink nightgown caked with blood, her body covered in bruises. He recalls watching as investigators descended on the 8-year-old's house in Calvert County on Sept. 26, where they found the remains of her two sisters in a freezer. Garrett organized an auction to help the child. The "Our Project Charity Benefit" will be today from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn in Solomons. Authorities found the bodies of two girls, who would have been 9 and 11, in Renee Bowman's basement freezer.

LUSBY - She walked barefoot along the gravel road, her pink nightshirt stained. The girl wore her hair in pigtails, each fastened with a pink barrette, her dark hair so matted it looked as if it were in dreadlocks. Phillip Garrett, smoking a cigarette on his neighbor's front lawn in the Calvert County neighborhood, called out to the girl. "My mother beats me. She just beats me to death," the 7-year-old, covered in bruises and cuts, responded, according to witnesses and police. Those startling words Friday night set off an investigation by the Calvert County sheriff's office that resulted in a grim discovery Saturday at the girl's home - children's remains in a large freezer in the basement.

As long as I've had waffles, it's been a good weekend. They were one of the first things I fixed when I started learning to cook, and they are still one of my favorite indulgences. I've got a feeling that in that I'm not alone - at least among men. Waffles seem to be one of those "dad" meals, probably because the recipes are so simple any fool can make them acceptably, and it's hard to think of another food with a higher ratio of deliciousness to effort. As simple as waffles may be to make, they're a little difficult to talk about.

The two visitors from Ireland peer into our refrigerator and gasp when they see the huge gallon jar of Mount Olive dill chips, which gleams like a barn silo in the harsh white light. "Is it that you love pickles?" asks one of the visitors. Then they stare at the 114-ounce tub of Heinz ketchup, enough to do the backstroke in, and the 96-ounce jug of Tropicana orange juice, which must have wiped out at least 3 acres of orange groves in Central Florida. "Dear God, you people must pack it away!"

Rogue ice had formed on the floor of the refrigerator freezer, and I was getting frosted. This was the household's backup fridge, one that sits in the basement. It had been moved there when a new first-line fridge took up residence in the kitchen some months back. It had become known as the "beer fridge," the place where brews, brats and other vital components of basement life were stashed. The machine started acting up right before Christmas -- the fridge wasn't cooling properly, and ice was forming, then melting on the freezer floor.

Andy Williams was just plain wrong. For the party-panicky, the holidays are definitely not "the most wonderful time of the year." It may not be the going-out part that bothers the festivity-phobic. It's the terrifying idea that people might just stop by. And they're going to expect you to feed them. Sometimes your own family does it to you. "I had a lady call me to say that her husband was bringing home 10 people that night," said Heather Joye Bender of LifesCelebrations Inc. in Skokie, Ill. Bender has been a party planner for about six years.

WASHINGTON -- Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have raised the bloody shirt of racism in defense of their embattled colleague Rep. William J. Jefferson of Louisiana. I appreciate their sense of loyalty to a friend, but Mr. Jefferson hasn't given them much to work with. Mr. Jefferson's friends say he deserves the presumption of innocence. But the court of public opinion, in which all politics operates, is quite another matter. There is, for example, the embarrassing little question of the alleged bribery money that the FBI found in Mr. Jefferson's freezer.

WASHINGTON -- It seemed more befitting of a crime drama than a page from congressional history: $90,000 in allegedly ill-gotten $100 bills, wrapped in aluminum foil, stuffed in the freezer of the gentleman from Louisiana. The idea that Rep. William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, might have been caught in a bribery scandal - he has not been charged with any crime, and he again denied any wrongdoing yesterday - is nothing new. Even the amount isn't extraordinary. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican representative from California, was recently convicted of accepting almost 27 times as much in illegal gifts and graft.