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Health & Fitness

Kitchens

Kitchens - are they like crossing a perilous minefield?

Living in lodgings temporarily has made me re-think & appreciate my kitchen and what I desire to put in there, ensuring no waste of food and time whilst working and visiting interesting places.

U.S. inventor Frances Gabe began building her own self-cleaning house in the 50’s—and still lives in it.  The house has sprinklers that spray each room with soapy water.  The furniture is waterproof.  The wardrobe washes clothes, the cupboards wash the dishes and the bookshelves dust themselves.  

Even though her inventions never took off, she invented and designed her house this way because she hated housework.

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I want to experience a few short-cuts in cleaning and cooking like most.  Kitchens however are really important to me.  Aren’t they interesting?

Kitchens are in the business of history making.

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Before we headed for Puerto Rico last summer, my friend Brenda had us over.  We hung out in the kitchen while she cooked and put the finishing touches on dinner.  We were all drawn to the comfort created effortlessly, smell and ambiance in Brenda’s kitchen.  

What a memory—her one hard an’ fast rule is that whatever number of guests are present, it is expandable so that drop-ins are always welcome,  particularly children and their friends.  Nothing shakes her when she is in her kitchen.

I think such places where meals are prepared should be a happy time. It is where friends and families meet to exchange ideas and relax.  It is where we are laying down the foundation for our children in the art of entertaining—they begin their social graces here.   Some of our favorite memories and heart breaks have been in the kitchen.

In mine, I hope it is place of welcome, as the family gathers there a lot, for homework, to play music, to shed a few tears, some drama and happiness & Houdini disappearance acts (when a real hard mix and stir are asked for).

It has a few frustrations though.

Now that we are away from the comforts of home, this apartment is only semi-furnished. I do not have many baking dishes and some pots do not have lids that fit. But there is a fondue pot, which inexplicably has a spot of prominence in the kitchen, even though it may not even get used in my time here. Fondue reminds me of the 70s for some reason when folks reckoned that this Swiss tradition was, also, counter-cultural?  Well, it collect spider webs in Puerto Rico, for now.

Up to recently, my 23 lb cat would have sprawled himself in the crucial space between the sink and refrigerator.  I’d move him but then I’d have emotions of guilt and I put him back in the hot zone and he‘d give an approving “mahrrorwww.”

There are the husband’s glasses on top of school papers galore to correct… and children’s half completed projects, books, spay can of bug repellent (with the climate in PR, fruit flies are always dawdling at the local cupboard corner, hopin‘ for the overripe banana), mail I don‘t want to face, and play dough figurines that need to be tossed.

Guilt if I toss them as I’m always concerned about the eagle eye of a  daughter that saves more than just money (old clothes, gum wrappers, receipts, childhood drawings, rocks, shells, books et.al.)

Often I receive promises of help with preparing dinner in the kitchen. But often ‘help’ means thieves have been in to rob the French Bread before dinner, and after 23 years or so, the husband’s can of coke can never make it to the recycle bin (I suppose better that than beer)… And, when you need the family, the so called helpers, clear out, nobody’s in sight, and with dinner moments away; tumble weed waifs across the dinner table and with the previously robbed scraps to tie them over, no one is interested, for the moment, in gathering around the table.

Except the faithful 20 year old cat under my legs. But, alas, the faithful sod passed on and now there is a 2 month welp of a cat that wants to sneak up on my legs.

I feel like an Irish Setter dog chasing my own tail.  (My old 95 lb Setter, Fion used to do this.   After he chased his own tail, he thought he should spend the rest of his life in your lap).

I grew up in a time and in a country when young people had to take cooking & sewing classes.  Having had a foundation in hotel management,  I would take off making special things I drooled over from books; and dreamt of my first very own kitchen. 

Even so I really have to fine-tune my skills often.

To this day, I still think the soufflés and fish pies I learned way back in school & in my mother’s kitchen are still dishes I would put on my table & are the most successful. 

My grandfather was a grocer and I believe a lot of parishioners charmed him to get an extra rabbit or a few more eggs and an extra helping of sugar & cigarettes during the War. 

My mother charmed the butcher and greengrocers for a super nice cut of meat & the freshest vegetable available.

I just wish Mr. Kowalski would let me charm him for the best head of cabbage!  He should throw in a couple of fresh duck eggs.  I’d be a customer for life.

Rationing, however, did not prevent folks like my parents from cooking up a storm, and oddly enough it’s how I developed my lifelong love of entertaining.

Everyone was rather poor, & yet generous with what they had.  You learned to make fast friends with a lot of people and soon the satisfaction of sharing a few delicacies was enormous. My mother’s kitchen was full of fabulous aromas and best of all, great laughter.  

It is sad to think this way, but will our sense of family only come back if/when our nations become poor again? Who knows. 

That same kitchen in the backs of beyond of southern Ireland, was also where every one of the neighbor ladies came to help make tea, sandwiches, cakes, and serve whiskey to all that stopped in at my mother’s wake as well.  It was perfect.

I have a love/hate relationship with the kitchen.

I’m figuring that the chaos in my kitchen is a challenge I will miss the most in old age—the exciting phone call with a job offer of a life-time, the acceptance to a desired school, the engagement of friends, the phone call with news of a loved one dying and the cries of a child who proclaimed their life is over—because their favorite cereal has been all eaten up by her little brother!!!

If your kitchen is like mine, the chasing of one’s tail only lasts moments when we look back on our lives.  The memories of the chaos, the life-changing decisions, the noise, the smell of a stew, smells of pumpkin and cinnamon & the folks that make us crazy; those will linger in the end. 

The messes have to be excused, in our kitchens, while we make our memories.

It is a glimpse into the world I’ve been so fortunate to inhabit.
I’m pretty certain anyway!

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