Home electrician needed at the white courtesy phone please.

To the point: I have a dead outlet. It was powering our fridge. I am defrosting said fridge to deal with a separate issue unrelated.

I unplugged the fridge. I plugged in a good heavy duty shop extension cord to run a couple of small heaters to blow air into the fridge to aid in defrosting. About five minutes go by and they both cut out. No pop. No smoke. Check the connections. All good. Check the breaker panel. Nothing tripped. Flip the offending circuit off then on and lights and other items on the circuit flick off then on as they should. This outlet has been powering the fridge for maybe 10 years with never an issue. Now suddenly it's dead. I pulled the cover. Looks great inside. No obvious issues like rodent intrusion, shorting or arcing. It is not GFCI. As a matter of fact none of the outlets in the kitchen are come to think of it. 

Time to call in a professional?

Duplex Receptacles are about a buck. I'd toss in a new receptacle and see what happens.

Then again, I had an extension cord E36 M3 the bed last week, and it was only a couple years old. Something went open circuit in the receptacle end of the cord.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

I wondered about the cord. So I plugged in a hair dryer. No Bueno.

I will get a new receptacle and proceed.

Check the other receptacles on that circuit.  I don't know if you can trace the wires, or if you will just have to kill the breaker and see what else is dead.  I have seen it happen that the receptacle that is immediately before the dead outlet is where the issue is.

In reply to rustyvw :

To the best of my knowledge I found and checked them. All functioning (2 of them). Lights work as well on the circuit. Good friend here in VT who trains electricians is stumped as well. And he's good.

Any chance it is powered off of a GFCI outlet fed from another part of the house? I would look at every GFCI outlet in and outside of your house to verify that none of them are popped.

Also, if you have a multimeter or non-contact voltage detector, you can check to see if the wire going to the plug has voltage or not. If it has 110-120v, then it's probably just a bad plug but if no or low voltage, probably a connection issue somewhere.

New information. It never dawned on me to check the stove circuit as it's labeled separately on the panel. I just noticed the clock on the stove was not on/lit up. Flip the breaker off then on. Stove clock returns. Check fridge outlet. We have power now. Methinks the breaker panel is mislabeled. Should I replace the breaker? Why would it kill the stove and not trip the circuit breaker? BTW, the stove is propane fired with a touch panel/clock for operating the over. I haz confuzed.

Sounds like your heating elements did trip the breaker but sometimes if they're old because they don't move much especially if they are in a garage that gets really hot they get "sticky" so to speak. Flip the breaker on and off a few times and you should be fine.

Your breaker was tripped.   Circuit breakers and GFCIs are meant to be "exercised" about once a year.   For the GFCI, it means hitting the test button, for the breaker, it is flipping them on and off at the panel.

Also, the refrigerator should be on a dedicated circuit.  

My electrician friend said the same about the breakers. I will yearly flip them.

Fridge is defrosted. New inner panel and fan installed. All drawers and shelves back in. Currently cooling down. Fingers crossed we're good to go. Thanks for all the advice and hand holding. You people rock.