My parents had popsicles (the kind on a stick wrapped in paper, not the ones in plastic "tubes") in their upright freezer. All melted, even right after running generator. I think the pork chops on the top shelf were frozen solid, don't know how warm they might have gotten in between "shots" of electricity, but I really think I should throw out the 5 lbs of hot dogs I brought home to put in my chest freezer - they were cold, but thawed, and who knows how warm they might have gotten at some point. Same with the big bag of Chicken Voila in Alfredo sauce - bag had some frozen chunks in it, but overall was pretty squishy. What's a few more things given that on Sunday we threw out all my mom's Jenny Craig meals she's just bought a few days before, and on Thursday threw out a good 40-50 lbs of veggies, chicken pot pies, chicken cordon bleu, stuffed peppers etc. that my mom had bought for my dad to eat while she was on a business trip, plus about 10 lbs of tilapia and shrimp? My dad also had a sandwich-sized bag with 3 hard hot-dog-shaped things I think might have been venison sausage - not frozen solid, I'm sure, maybe smoked? Insisted I take that to put in my freezer. I have no idea what it is, so don't know if anyone can tell me if they're safe. I have to tell him to watch his blueberries for mold, too, though I think he uses them frozen on his cereal, now they've refrozen into a solid chunk. I'd just as soon make jam out of them like I plan to do with my blackberries and strawberries. DH is looking at whole-house generators too. I'm thinking of seeing whether we can add our well pump to the 100A subpanel our HVAC, water heater and basement freezer are already on. I don't know if inspector will let us permanently change the fridge to go on the subpanel as well as the well pump, unless we put our resistive Aux Heat for the heat pump on the main panel (even in the dead of winter I think we can survive with geothermal and sweaters). Gotta think how to swap things around to balance the load and get all the necessities on that 100A panel. Then maybe an $800 generator will do.

Great photos. I'd eat must about anything in those pictures except the bugs. Ann

When the fridge in the garage went out four or five years ago we moved the side by side out there. I never liked the SbyS. It just seemed both compartments were too small. I have a fridge with a bottom freezer in the house and I like it better because my refrigerated items are at eye level. In the bottom freezer is the ice-maker, all my frozen herbs, nuts I have already toasted, white bread, wheat bread, containers of lemon juice and lime juice and some odds and ends. I had a 15 foot freezer in the garage which had to be defrosted. It stayed so packed that I could never find what I was looking for so we just sold it and bought a new self defrosting 21 CF freezer. It holds a lot more and I have vowed not to get it junked up with bits and pieces of items. It has one pull out tray the width of the freezer. It isn't deep and I keep things like frozen BBQ, the small amount of beef I buy, and various sausages in it. There is a bin in the bottom with a drop down closure where I keep boxed items for the grandkids such as corn dogs and other misc items. ONe shelf is devoted to frozen veggies. Large bags of nuts and ice cream go in the door. I bought 3 plastic bins from Wal-Mart. In one bin I placed packs of chicken parts, one has packs of all of my boneless, skinless chicken breasts in it and one contains pork chops and pork tenderloins. The top shelf contains a country ham which I had sliced and I used the Food Saver to put each slice in a separate bag. The Food Saver is great because anything frozen in those bags last a long time and doesn't get freezer burn.

Cold packs are fine, but even better are some block ice, like frozen water bottles and those 1/2 gallon plastic milk jugs that we freeze a few days ahead. I travel with frozen and fresh cold foods, 2 separate coolers, one for frozen i pack with block ice covered with a thick layer of newspaper, under and above. We travel three days often and arrive with frozen foods. The other 'fridge' cooler is cold with re-stocking some bag ice along the way. A few, four hours, will be fine. Just make sure your cold items are cold before the traveling and packing. If you actually take a temp, i bet your cooler traveling temp will be much colder than any normal fridge temp. Trying to travel with a hot dish in a cold ice packed cooler could be disaster. They collide in temperature often in a danger zone of unsafe. A decent cooler is a good investment. You can actually roast a brisket, then pack it in a 'cooler' right from the oven with a thick wrap of newspaper and it will maintain a hot temp for hours making it more tender while the oven is open for other dishes. All about good insulation. Same with cold. Add cold foods with ice and temp is cold/safe for hours.