from scratch

The kitchen of my youth was not flooded with the aromas of homemade food the way I imagine an Italian or Indian kitchen may be, but still it was a place that we congregated; it was a place where life happened. It had its own smells that stemmed from every day - dirty dogs, sports equipment and teenage sweat. It was where I learned about love and death, the arrival of a new sibling and the ending of a marriage, or how to tell a joke. It was where we discussed politics and a failed quiz. For me, the kitchen has always been more than just a room in a house, it is a sacred space where family and friends eat and create a life together.

For most of my childhood, I lived with my mother and two sisters. None of us were great cooks, and the food we prepared was not fancy, but we shared it at the kitchen table. We ate cold cereal in the mornings – Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms were a few of our favorites. I once picked out every mini marshmallow from a box of Lucky Charms so that when my older sister sat down with her bowl, she was left with only the boring part of the mix (which was not lucky at all). Dinners followed an unwritten rotation that included Hamburger Helper, cube steak and tater tots, and Shake and Bake. We were blissfully unaware at the time that our diet was preservative laden, but my mom balanced that out with homegrown bean sprouts, homemade yogurt, liver, raisins and prunes.

I also have other memories beyond food from that kitchen, moments still so vivid in my mind’s eye it’s as if they happened yesterday. It was in that kitchen that I cracked my front tooth when I continued to roughhouse after being scolded for doing so. My best hiding place was located there too, a small spot big enough for one where I would curl up between a heater and a vent.  The kitchen table held its own memories as well - I remember my older sister making me laugh just when I had a mouthful of milk; she got soaked. And on many occasions, I recall being made to sit and eat everything on my plate, swallowing the Brussels sprouts - which I hated - whole.

For many years, Marjorie was a fixture there too, an old English nanny who dressed in a uniform with an apron where she concealed her cigarettes and chocolate wrapped in tissues. She boiled cabbage and fed us pudding for dessert and a square of chocolate from her stash at bedtime. Then one day she went back to England and we never saw her again.

My kitchen of today is just as alive as the one from my childhood, although my food tastes have matured (I now chew my Brussels sprouts). There are no Swanson TV dinners with the metal compartmentalized containers, no Yodels, and no sugary cereals of any kind in our house. And because our daughter is a baker, the smell of fresh cookies or cake lingers in the air.

We love to entertain, and when we do, we light a fire in the living room, adjust the lights just so, and strategically set up a bar in the study, but no matter, it is difficult to keep guests in the lesser-used parts of our home. The warmth and cheer of the kitchen is just too enticing.

Our kitchen, brightly lit and extremely cluttered, is large and long like a bowling alley. The walls are lined haphazardly with framed photographs of my husbands’ travels, outdated school pictures of our four kids, and two great big bulletin boards covered in announcements, memorabilia and more pictures. The green, marble-topped counters, popular Vermont Verde from the Eighties, act as a magnet for our mail, magazines, and newspapers, which get stacked and re-stacked every day. Those same counters accepted the casseroles, soups and such that were so kindly brought by friends after our son passed away, and on those same counters sits an assortment of awards our family has accumulated - a squash trophy, a sailing medal, a silver tray and cup.

And right in the middle of everything is my desk. It is loud, and the interruptions are frequent. Eggs are frying; coffee is brewing. School backpacks are dumped at my feet, and important papers that need my signature are swept up in the undertow of books, never to be seen again. And from my desk, I have a front row seat to our family; my work suffers, but I wouldn’t trade it. I tackle the issues that arise. “Will you be home for dinner?” I ask, everyone – anyone! – hopefully.

While the kids were growing up, I often found myself on the sidelines of a field at dinnertime, so we grabbed food on the fly. My husband was frequently on the road; his dinner waiting in the oven. So I learned which foods are easy to eat in a car or which foods can withstand the heat for extended periods without drying out. When it happened that we were all together in the evening, we ate at our kitchen table. With toddlers, dinner was quick and messy; we had tacos and pasta and broccoli doused in ketchup. And we had speech nights, which involved each of the children standing up, usually on their chair, and giving an impassioned or silly talk. Today it’s mostly just my husband and me, but when the kids come home, for an occasion or a holiday, we sometimes venture a little farther into the dining room, a room where we feel the pressure to dress more formally, but mostly we wind up in the kitchen.

I have always relied on food for more than pure sustenance; it soothes and comforts the way an old friend can. And the kitchens of my lifetime, just physical structures, are the backdrop for infinite moments both meaningful and random that I will hold onto and draw upon my entire life. It makes me wonder how bland life would be if we didn’t have the opportunity to break bread together, connected in the warmth of the epicenter of our hearth. The very ritual enhances our lives the way a small granular of salt enhances the essence of a dish, embedding itself in the crevices, its effort invisible but evident in its intensification of the flavor and the lasting impression of the taste.