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Hi, friend.
I have complicated feelings about my kitchen.
For a couple that consists of someone who is a not-terrible home cook (me) and someone who was quite literally a professional chef for over a decade (Mike), it might be surprising to learn that our kitchen is overall pretty awful. Its layout is nonsensical, there’s a disturbing lack of counter space, the stove is pure garbage, and—the absolute most incomprehensible thing of all—there is no hood vent. I live with a man who has a dedicated welding torch to flambé stuff with, and we don’t have a goddamn hood vent.
The terribleness of our kitchen isn’t our doing. We rent our house, having moved from the centre of the city to this small town amidst the chaos of 2020. It was a godsend back then: an old, perfectly square house on a double lot, with good landlords (yes, really), a cozy office for my remote work, approximately triple the amount of space we’d previously had in our shoebox apartment, and great rent. The only issue was the kitchen.
So you see that I can’t really complain.
But after five years, the kitchen chafes. It is not, in any way, an attractive space. Our house was essentially falling apart ten years ago, before getting shittily flipped and sold to our landlords. Thick layers of white paint cover any hint of character that might have existed in 1900 when it was built. During that flip, I think they gutted the kitchen and rebuilt it, Frankenstein-like, using castoff bits of counter and cupboard and sink from other bad flip jobs.
(I have good reason to believe in this Frankenstein approach to home renovation, because they also replaced the windows with “new” windows from the 1970s that they pulled from god knows where. Not a single one fit properly, and were held in place with duct tape when we moved in. They leaked like a sieve. Our landlords replaced them all for us with actual new windows last winter.)
We’ve made the shitty kitchen work for us. We moved the appliances around, and built fake additional counter space using a bar cart and—not joking—old chairs from IKEA (Covid ingenuity knew no bounds). We’ve learned to put a big sheet pan on the bottom rack of the oven to buffer the totally inconsistent heat; to always remember that the front right burner has only one temperature (inferno) even when on the lowest setting; to never let water pool on the countertop by the sink because it’s so slanted that it will all flow to the corner and flood the coffee machine.
But after five years, I feel my annoyance with this space reaching critical mass. It’s impractical and hard to clean and the light is so shitty that I can’t take any pretty pictures in it (and you know I want to take pretty pictures of my bread). I’d kill for a dishwasher, for a bigger fridge, for an actual pantry, for—let’s really dream—a pot filler.
But. But.
Tonight, after doing the dishes (by hand) and wiping the countertops and putting things away, my eye landed on the corner where the stove meets the fridge, with a four-inch counter that we built between them. My beautiful Dutch oven (this is a Staub household) was sitting on the back element, waiting for the sourdough I’ll bake tomorrow. The counter was a clutter of tiny delicacies: two cans of Slap Ya Mama, a box of smoked Maldon salt flakes, a ceramic butter bell, a salt cellar, a mortar filled with crushed peppercorns and its pestle beside it. Paraphernalia, well-used and well-loved. A glimpse of a kitchen that, despite its flaws, is still the beating heart of this home.
The heart, where we cook for one another. Where we mix Manhattans on a Friday night. Where the bread rises. Where the stock simmers on the stove. Where the cupboards and freezer and fridge and weird haphazard shelf we use as a pantry are overflowing. Where we are so, so, so immensely blessed.
It’s a weird feeling, to have nostalgia for a time and place you still live in. But I realised, in that moment, that I’ll miss this wonky kitchen someday. I’ll miss this mishmash of edible clutter, I’ll miss these scratched pine floors, I’ll miss the hum and bustle of this particular kitchen in this particular house, the unique flavour of the food that we create on this crappy stove. Someday, we’ll build another home with a different kitchen as its beating heart, but it won’t be this kitchen, and that taste is strangely bittersweet.
It’s ugly but it’s home, you know?
What I’m loving 🤍
I finished the Sophie scarf! This was my first knitting project where I actually followed a pattern and didn’t just do garter stitch the whole time, and I am very proud of it. I’m now onto the Step By Step Sweater by Handmade By Florence, my first garment. I am very excited.
On the recommendation of my friend Chloe, I started reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Honestly I would have bought it based on the title and cover alone, but turns out it’s also wildly engrossing. No spoilers please!
I’ve been binging the podcast Short History Of…lately and absolutely loving it. Each episode is about 50 minutes and super polished. A recent fave is their Stonehenge episode, which gave me all kinds of feelings about humanity. Good stuff.
