Niki arrived just as I finished vacuuming. She walked into the house holding a pan and asked, “Do you have room in your refrigerator for this? It needs to be baked, but not until an hour before we eat.”

Joining my daughter in the kitchen, I explained, “My refrigerator is pretty crowded, but maybe I can move things around, so it will fit.” We spent the next five minutes moving things around on the shelves. Dozens of half empty jars of condiments crowded together on the top shelf with a box of milk, a large bowl of Jello and a bottle of wine.

On the next shelf down were three or four mysterious, long- forgotten boxes of leftovers. I couldn’t remember what was in one of the boxes, so I threw it out. The other boxes looked more recent. It felt wrong to throw them out because they weren’t moldy yet, so I put them back. Closer to the front of that shelf were boxes of newer, still somewhat appealing leftovers. To the far left was another cluster of half-empty jars of relishes, pickles, jars of dried vegetables, fruit, and nuts, as well as chia and flax seeds.

The next shelf down contained two dozen eggs, a rack of ribs waiting to be roasted, a box of fresh vegetables, and a precariously balanced pan of apple crumble. It didn’t look like Niki’s pan would fit. My refrigerator is a cluttered mess even when I’m not hosting a family potluck gathering.

Taking a step back, I shrugged and suggested, “It’s cold enough today that we can use my unheated front porch as a refrigerator for a few hours.”

Managing the contents of a refrigerator is hard to do. Sometimes leftovers get forgotten on the backside of a shelf, in a true case of, out of sight, out of mind. It doesn’t help when the leftovers weren’t enjoyed very much when they were fresh. Another problem is that every family member seems to like different condiments. Every member of the family has an aversion to being the one to not eat the last pickle, olive, or forkful of kimchi.

I blame my difficulty in cleaning and throwing out food from my refrigerator on my parents. They got married at the height of the Great Depression and then raised a growing family during World War II where the necessities of life were rationed. They lived true to the mantra, “Use it up. Wear it out. Make do, or do without.” Even when their household economy improved, they were frugal and as one of their children, I learned many of their ways.

My sister has the same problem with her refrigerator. Sometimes she even forgets about things in it that she likes. The other day she complained, “I found moldy liver sausage on a back shelf the other day. I enjoyed eating a few slices of it when I first bought it. Once it was pushed back on the shelf, I forgot about it.”

Refrigerators are too deep. Food we enjoy pushes the food we don’t eat often, or like as much, deeper into the chilled recesses. This makes it easy to forget about what we can’t see. I bought my sister a lazy Susan for a refrigerator to see if that would help. One little spin, and the jars in the back come around to the front! She hasn’t installed it yet, because the shelf is too cluttered.

Probably because we have the same parents, my sister and I have identical standards. It seems wasteful to throw out leftovers unless they have grown hair. At that point we are not wasteful; we are protecting the family from food poisoning.

I have adopted a new mandate for myself: to have obligatory meals a few times a week. You may ask, what is an obligatory meal?

Obligatory meals are meals where you take pity on orphan foods. If boxes of green beans, rice, and chicken broth are languishing on a sticky shelf, I am tasked with figuring out how to make an enjoyable meal out of them. One helping of chili left, but don’t want to eat it? Eat it anyway! Perk it up with flavored croutons. For supper tonight, I am faced with seven green olives, ¼ cup pickled green beans, two boiled eggs and a slice of bread. I wonder what I can do to zhuzh that up?

I’m not losing weight, but the inside of my refrigerator is beginning to look great! For dessert I might wash off a sticky refrigerator shelf while eating one of the dried-out cookies I made several weeks ago.