The Center of the Home is ALWAYS the Kitchen
Christi HymelShare
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a great party will always ended up centered in the kitchen. I guess that is because the kitchen is where the action is happening….by action I mean the cooking and creating of wonderful dishes. It’s where guests await the arrival of the next appetizer of dish to be served. I am grateful that our house has a self-contained kitchen. By that I mean that we do not have a modern open-concept house where the kitchen is really part of the living room, etc. I like this because my kitchen is often my oasis, where I can escape, cook and bake uninterrupted. It is not an especially large kitchen but it does have one especially lovely feature-a huge island where we always have breakfast, where I can knead bread and cut out dozens of cookies and biscuits. It’s where we spent many hours in our homeschool life, my three children and me sitting around the island getting our lessons accomplished, reading aloud and getting to know our wonderful world. Since the kitchens are truly the hubs of our homes they should be lovely, inviting spaces where we create memories with our friends and loved ones. I love that Trader Joe’s always has beautiful flowers for sale so that I buy frequently just to set in my kitchen. I usually always have some beautiful candle burning while I am baking or cookie so that the experience become a little more magical. I can always tell when in someone’s kitchen whether they are a cook or just a reheater of already cooked frozen food. Home cooks have their cooking utensils in beautiful jars near by for easy reach when cooking. They have lovely cluttered counters with the equipment they use on a regular basis when creating their masterpieces. These modern kitchens where are the gadgets are hidden away don’t entice me much at all. I love walking into my kitchen knowing that all I need to make a wonderful meal is at my finger tips. I keep my utensils in a beautiful marble container that was much too expensive for its purpose, but it reminds me that creating meals is a beautiful and sacrificial experience. I also keep my kitchen-aid stand mixer on my counter as well. It was another too expensive purchase, but it was the 100th anniversary of the invention of mixer and I couldn’t pass up buying it. It is pale blue with a white ceramic beaded mixing bowl. I can’t help but be thrilled using it and admiring its beauty when I am baking. Another thing I don’t hide away in my kitchen is my collection of aprons which I display on a handy hanging rack I found at IKEA and the Dargonslayer hung up for me. I love collecting aprons as much as I love dish towels and table linens. My oldest daughter surprised one day by telling me that she always loved seeing me in my apron in the kitchen. I never thought much about wearing an apron. But then I saw it through her eyes and how it came to symbolize love expressed in preparing and serving food. I love a long linen apron. It has many useful purposes: protecting your clothes, drying your hands, make-shift potholders and even drying tears from our little one’s faces. When I see my beautiful collection of aprons hanging on my kitchen wall, waiting for me to put one on and start to create something wonderful, I am filled with happiness. It is such a simple thing, like a bowl of lovely, bright yellow lemons in a cobalt blue bowl that can lift our moods and chase gray skies away. Just as my mother cooked our favorite dishes growing up, I wanted all my children to have at least one favorite dish of mine that they looked forward to having and even would request when they would return home from wherever life has taken them. And I hope with all my heart that they will do like wise for their own children. My prayer is that the kitchen will be the centers of their homes, where they embrace the love of cooking and baking and preparing all things delicious for their families. To be a cook is a marvelous thing. Even when our dishes don’t turn out as wonderfully as we anticipated or as beautifully as we would have liked, the love involved in the preparation will usually cover the imperfections. The kitchen is to a cook what a palate is to an artist, the place where we are invited to plan, create and then share the fruit of our labors. I hope your kitchen is filled with all lovely things and beautiful memories too.