While the oven was going

 

Recently I stumbled across a treasure of journal writing when I discovered 12 of my Aunt Jessie’s daily journals written a half century ago. She documents her life as one of two elderly ladies—sisters—living through tough economic times.

The two women lived in a small southeastern South Dakota town with no visible means of support other than Social Security checks, crop money provided by small driblets of inherited family farmland and Jessie’s two-hour daily job as cleaning lady at the local bank.

Our country is currently experiencing economic woes and many people are struggling. I decided to take a closer look to see how my two favorite aunts survived hard times to learn from their experiences. From the Journal of Jessie Becker:

Since I had plenty of eggs on hand, I went on a baking spree. Baked 2 batches Chocolate Chip and peanut butter cookies. While the oven was going, I put in a salmon dish, which included mashed potatoes and white sauce with cheese.

Five stalks of very limp celery hunch in the corner of my refrigerator vegetable crisper. Filled with the spirit of Aunt Jessie’s journals, I happily pull them onto the counter.

Perfect. I am making a stirfry and seriously trying to use up odds and ends of vegetables. Aunt Jessie’s credo of “using up” food is taking hold in my life. Every time I decide to throw something away, I find myself asking—what would Jessie do?

I continue my treasure hunt through the freezer. An ancient bag of organic broccoli, ice-covered and slightly freezer burned and a partially used bag of green beans greet me from the shelf of my freezer door. Excellent. More stir-fry veggies.

At one time in my life, I might have thrown the celery and broccoli out as garbage, but no longer. I’m finding it more and more difficult to waste food now that I’m reading Jessie’s journals.

Posthumously she is causing me to feel pangs of guilt when I do. The sensation that she’s looking over my shoulder with her shy quiet smile and giving me a thumbs up when I “think before I throw,” uplifts my soul and somehow makes me feel close to her although she’s been gone 20 years.

Continuing to scrounge through the kitchen I also manage to find old bits of garden carrots, a drooping bunch of green onions and a small piece of frozen beef hiding at the very rear of the freezer. All these, I add to the stir-fry, feeling smug.

This meal is costing pennies and I’m proud of my accomplishment!

The finished stir-fry is delicious and also provides leftovers for another meal, an added bonus.

I thank my long-departed aunt and her journals for reminding me how to live more prudently. When Aunt Jessie fired up her kitchen oven, she did not stop at baking one measly little item. She would have considered that a waste of power and she lived by the axiom of “waste not – want not.” She always baked a barrage of goods.

If she baked bread, she also stirred up a cookie batch. If a pot roast simmered in the oven, she baked potatoes or vegetables and maybe bread alongside. Never did she waste the energy to power the oven.

There’s a lot to be learned from Aunt Jessie’s journals about life skills that preceded our modern “throw away” world and habits I have sadly forgotten but am attempting to recoup.