[Rhodes22-list] Refrigerator - Icebox

[Robert Skinner]

Bill Effros wrote:
> Robert,
> Have you seen Roger's postings on this?
> He used dry ice inside foam containers duct taped shut for week long
> adventures away from ice.  You have to know what's inside each
> container, and open them only once, when you're ready.  Roger could keep
> ice cream this way...

Sure did, when he was with us.  Great loss there, BTW.  
Didn't always agree, but he had many good and useful ideas.

As many new to the list were not party to that series of 
posts, and others don't have easy and cheap access to dry 
ice (or liquid nitrogen, for that matter, and dewar flasks* 
are hard to come by with sufficiently large mouths), I 
offered a half-a-loaf solution, admittedly not a new idea.

But it can be accomplished with materials that we often 
throw away, and it works.

> I have used frozen steaks along with "frozy water", hoping that the
> steaks would be un-frozy in time to be cooked and eaten.  You have to
> like rare steak to appreciate this technique.

As to the steaks, if you vacuum bag them and get them next
to a strong gamma radiation source for a while, they will
keep without refrigeration.  There is some protein and other
organic molecule breakdown, but not enough to notice in a 
week or so.  That would let you get past the thaw problem.

But I like my steaks Pitt rare anyway, so it's not an issue 
for me, and strong gamma sources are likely to attract 
unwanted attention from the Homeland Security folks.

/Robert Skinner

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewar_flask