Kitchen philosophy

I have a very messy fridge (at left), and I always have. Like many families, the front of our refrigerator is our communication center and a vital tool for reminding me of appointments, generally keeping our lives in order. It always boggles my mind when I go into someone else’s house and see that their fridge is completely bare. I would be rudderless.

I was thinking about that the other day. I was staring at the fridge as my coffee was cooking, and was reminded about a blog I wrote back in October of 2008, on the eve of the 2008 election. Then, as now, I titled it “Kitchen philosophy,” and it read like this:

You know, you can tell a lot about a person by looking at her refrigerator.

Take mine, for example. A close inspection of the schedules, fliers, magnets, white board notes and calendar dates jostling for space on my fridge will tell you these things about my family:

• we’re Buffalo Bills fans
• at least one of us works for the YMCA
• the kids get good grades and are musically talented
• we’re involved in our church
• we shop at Aldi and Tops
• we’re blood donors
• we watch WXXI
• we’re into martial arts
• someone attends Nazareth College
• we care about the environment

The fact that there are three calendars on our fridge would also indicate that despite all these activities (and the chaotic appearance of the fridge), we’re pretty organized about everything and are keeping on top of life pretty well.

Now, that’s an amazing amount of information gleaned from one small part of a person’s life. And if you think about it, that’s a heck of a lot more than we know about either of the two presidential candidates or their VP picks, people we’re going to be trusting with running our country and helping our families maintain the status quo.

So what about this … how about we ask each of the four candidates to take a picture of their refrigerators and publish them in the New York Times. Those simple photos could tell us more about their character than any stump speech or debate ever could.

A lot has changed in my life since that fridge from 11 years ago. I no longer have any children at home, for example, which changes things a LOT. I also have an entirely new house — and new fridge.

So I thought it would be fun to do this again. Here’s what I gleaned from my current messy fridge:

• My kids are grown, but I’m still proud of them. Their photo holds a prominent spot
• We still shop at Aldi, and even tough I’m not a Tops shopper anymore, I still hold a soft spot in my heart for them — my Wegmans shopping list still says “Tops”
• My daughter is getting married.
• I like live theater
• I shop at Kohl’s
• I like pizza!
• I’m into cycling, and am still involved in martial arts
• We’re still going to the same dentist
• I work in the Webster schools.

A lot of things are different. But so much stays the same.

What does your fridge say about you?

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