Kitchens

The kitchen in 44 is almost done. The dropped ceiling, raised, sheet rocked and painted with additional lights installed; the walls repaired and painted and the appliances returned to their proper place.

And it's waiting to have life brought to it. People, aprons, tables, coffee makers, dishes, crystal, pots and pans and love.

Kitchens are the greatest!

They're not just a room, or just a room to prepare food in.

They're life, they're memories, they're teaching, they're comfort.

We were in two kitchens in Wisconsin this past weekend. We all, that means five of us in one kitchen, prepared the Saturday night dinner. I was given the great responsibility of "coddling the rissoto into existence", as Maja describes the process. And did I ever "coddle"! Add liquid and stir for 10 minutes, no guessing, a timer was set, times three! Matt had expertly pounded the chicken and Liz applied the pesto, all under the expert guidance of chef Kay. And we enjoyed another delicious dinner around the "kitchen" table.

Sunday, after a lunch with twelve including our adoptive brother from Colton, we again stood around a warm, inviting, "Bon Apetit" kitchen in Kenosha. I learned about browned butter and chives, a new grilled chicken marinade, theater productions, church involments and thrift store purchases and the fact that I had made the recipe book from this precious family. My classic beef stew will grace the pages of the Brown family recipe book, now being formulated. I wonder if they have Ruth's sour cream pound cake or her Vanilla Christmas cookie recipe?

Kitchens are not just prep stations. They're family, they're instruction, they're life, they're love.

They're where we learn to eat with our mouths closed and how to sit up straight. They are where we learn manners. They're where we learn to be polite. They are orange carpet on the kitchen floor in the 70's and my mom making the best apple pies. I can see my grandmother of 90 peeling potatoes while looking at the movie camera. I guess she was a "ham". It's a vision of my dad carving the meat, ham, turkey, roast beef or tongue. Yuk!. It's the room that we polish silver in and the room we organize parties and menus.

The kitchen is where a young blond pigtailed girl of eight learned to bake and every Saturday after that was baking treats for her family, much to her brothers delight. Then she learned to prepare the whole meal. Kitchens are places where we can be adventurous and try new culinary experiments, or where we conduct chemistry experiments.

It's where Math books are brought to, waiting for Dad to come home and explain complicated equations that Mom couldn't get. It's where friends gather to study the Bible or neighbors come to have a cup of tea. It's where a library of cookbooks find their home and weekly menus are developed and family reunions are planned.

Kitchen's are where we learn new tastes, new foods, new friendships. We learn to set a table. We learn to listen to what has happened in someone else's day. We learn tolerance and patience. Families discuss politics in the kitchen and all about the latest episode of Lost.

We experience the smells associated with home. Onion and garlic sauteing in glistening olive oil. A dinner. The smell of vanilla, the anticipation of a wonderful dessert. The distinctive smell of homemade bread rising and baking.

Kitchen tables are places that friends sit around and develop ideas and plans for Desert Night. Kitchen tables are places for the "kids", when the dining room table has more than 14. They serve as buffet stations, as prep stations for large outdoor fund raising luncheons, as game tables for canasta or Mexican train game. Kitchen tables have chairs, benches, high chairs, leafs, table clothes, placemats, vases and so many varieties of china.

Kitchens are fun and happy, disappointing when the recipe fails, smokey when the meat burns, inviting when the hungry family returns at the end of the day. It's the place where six big college guys gather to decorate Christmas cookies and the place where a pastor and his wife sit receiving calls from Italy.

Kitchens are memories, love, family, food and life.

I wonder what the kitchen in 44 has in store for us?