Our power came back on last night around 10 PM. It had been out for over 24 hours.
I was already asleep at that wacky hour because, hell, there's just about nothing else to do. But I got up and immediately went to inspect the food in the fridge and freezer. I'd left the fridge doors closed all day to keep in the cold, but now that the power was back on I wanted to see how they'd truly held up. Amazingly, everything in the freezer still seemed to be frozen solid and nothing in the fridge seemed any less cool to the touch than usual.
Does anyone have any idea if it should be safe or unsafe? I'm vegan, so there's nothing animal-derived involved.
Oh never mind, here's a food safety link that says that a full freezer should keep for up to two days. Whew. And it suggests that anything in the fridge is probably unsafe, but then where it gets specific about what to discard, it's all animal-derived stuff. I think we're safe.
One of the lesser-known hazards of such a lengthy power-outage is that you have to eat out for every meal. So we had breakfast at my company's cafeteria, Karsten picked up lunch from Baja Fresh and brought it to eat with me at work, and we ate dinner out at the Mediterranean place. Our dining budget is now as bloated as my belly is from all the food. I'll be thrilled to have a whole day of normal at-home meals today.