Pull Up a Chair

Some things aren't meant to last forever. But maybe they're meant to be passed on.

This week, one of my clients was telling me about the sweet pickles she used to make every summer.

Not one or two jars.

Sixty-five or seventy quarts.

Every year.

She smiled as she talked about the process—changing the water, waiting on the pickles, and putting them up so her family could enjoy them all year long.

Then, with all the sass you'd expect from a woman who's earned the right to say exactly what's on her mind, she joked that nobody would help her make them anymore.

Her daughter didn't miss a beat.

"Mama... nobody else is helping you either."

We all laughed.

It was one of those moments only families understand, where teasing is just another way of saying, I love you.

But after they left, I couldn't stop thinking about those pickles.

Not because I wanted the recipe.

Because I realized one day there may be no one left who knows exactly how she made them.

Learning What I Was Never Taught

I grew up in the city.

We didn't have gardens.

We didn't can tomatoes.

We didn't freeze butterbeans.

We didn't make biscuits from scratch.

Those weren't traditions I grew up with.

Lately, though, I've found myself learning from women who have spent a lifetime doing those very things.

This week alone I canned tomatoes, put up corn, froze butterbeans, and attempted homemade biscuits for the first time.

(We'll just say my first batch humbled me. 😂)

Later that day, I was talking to my son.

I was telling him about canning tomatoes and trying my hand at homemade biscuits.

In true Ethan fashion, he laughed and said something along the lines of,

"Wow... your life is really exciting."

And honestly?

I laughed too.

Because from the outside, spending your day putting up tomatoes probably doesn't sound very exciting.

But then I found myself explaining why it mattered.

Nobody taught me these things growing up.

I wasn't raised with gardens or canning jars lined up on the counter.

I didn't know how to preserve food or make biscuits from scratch.

These are things I'm learning now—from women who have been quietly doing them their whole lives.

I told him that if people my age don't take the time to learn these skills, who's going to teach the next generation?

Because one day those recipes, those little tricks, those family traditions... they'll be gone.

Not because they weren't valuable.

Because nobody asked to learn them.

More Than Better Food

The other day I looked at the ingredients on a bag of frozen biscuits.

Then I looked at the ingredients that went into the biscuits I made from scratch.

The difference wasn't just what was in them.

It was the knowledge behind them.

Someone taught someone else.

Then they taught someone else.

That's how those recipes survived.

Convenience has given us speed.

But I sometimes wonder what it has quietly taken from us in return.

Not just healthier food.

Not just better flavor.

But the knowledge of how to make it ourselves.

I think my generation sits in a unique place.

We're young enough to still learn from the people who came before us.

And old enough to teach the people coming after us.

If we don't ask questions...

If we don't pull up a chair...

If we don't let someone show us how they make the biscuits, the pickles, or the jam...

Those traditions won't disappear because the recipes were too complicated.

They'll disappear because one day, without anyone realizing it, someone will make them for the very last time.

Pull Up a Chair

So these days, when someone older starts telling me how they've always done something...

I'm listening.

Not because I expect to make seventy quarts of sweet pickles every year.

But because I understand now that they aren't just sharing a recipe.

They're sharing a lifetime.

And I think some things are simply too valuable to let disappear.

So if someone starts telling you how they make their biscuits...

Or how they put up tomatoes...

Or why they always changed the pickle water on the third day...

Pull up a chair.

You might leave with more than a recipe.

You just might carry a piece of someone's life forward.

Love, Bawsey