It recently occurred to me that without doing anything, I have always kept a fairly green kitchen. All because I’ve been Miss Frugal (the unenlightened might call it Miss Chintzy) from way back when. I have never used a single watt of electricity on an electric coffee maker, an electric food mixer, a food processor, a microwave oven, a toaster oven, an electric frying pan, a waffle maker, an electric grill or an electric can opener, the last of which I’ve always considered a particularly frivolous item. I ask you, how hard is it to give a hand can opener a few twists with two fingers to pop open the lid of a can?
Admittedly, I have a doll-size kitchen, so buying and squeezing all these appliances into it would have been a superman size challenge. But even in large kitchens, I’ve never liked the look of appliances parked all over counters, especially when decked out in plastic shawls. The top reason I’ve never sprung for these items, however, is that I never felt the need to have them in the first place. This is in tune with the big frugalmeister himself, Thoreau, who said, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify…A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
One thing I’ve always let alone is an electric rotary mixer. Actually, I just remembered that I inherited one of those things years ago, except I never took it out of the cabinet. Cleaning it was too much of a pain. Plus I’ve always liked using a simple hand whisk, liked the motion and tactile sensation of it, liked to watch liquids slowly spinning into thicker and thicker emulsions. Mixing a pudding or cream into just the right consistency is a simple yet satisfying accomplishment.
And as for using a mixer to prepare mashed potatoes, I have a more streamlined method. Cutting potatoes into bite sizes prior to cooking them, I boil the spuds till they can be roughly mashed up with a fork. This gives them a bit of texture (traditionalists might call it “lumps”) and what I like to think of as a little extra oomph.
Though it takes extra time to chop up veges, I also prefer doing the cutting myself, rather than handing the job over to a food-processing machine. There’s something hypnotic and relaxing about a rhythmic, cutting motion.
When it comes to microwave or toaster ovens, my stove already has an oven so I’ve never seen the point of a second or third one. Aside from not having the space for another oven, what would I use it for? The only appeal of a microwave I can see is that, unlike a stove oven, it emits no heat — which would be a pleasant omission on sweltering summer days. Except in that kind of heat I prefer eating chilled foods.
Another appliance that’s never touched my countertop is an electric coffee maker. Primarily a tea drinker, I’ve never missed it. And when I do drink coffee or serve it to guests, I serve freeze-dried instant, which tastes perfectly fine to my taste buds, although apparently not to many of today’s Colombian coffee snobs who sneer at the mention of “instant” java.
One small appliance that did hit my countertop was a long ago gift — a popcorn maker. It didn’t last long, though, having expired in puffs of smoke that set off my smoke alarm. It too was never missed or replaced, after I discovered popcorn is easily popped in a little oil in a big kettle on the stove top.
Leading a simple life with few kitchen appliances is not for everyone. In my own case it not only suits me, it also pleases me to know that for every appliance I never purchased, I spared the earth’s resources from further depletion. And it’s nice to save a piece of the earth, no matter how tiny.
Some related posts include:
- Recycling Household Gear
- Cape Cod Memories in Dollar Jar
- Napkins in a Glass
- A Debt Free Life
- Thoreau — King of Frugal Mountain
- Offbeat Storage Solutions with Recycled Gear
- Will your Green Funeral Include Water Cremation?
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