How the Kitchen Became my Favorite Room

Husband and I are still, relatively, new to the house we live in – it’s comfortable and in a nice location close to our town’s downtown, meaning we can walk to the farmer’s market and we see some of the same folks at a lot of meetings of folks interested in improving their town. But this summer has been exceptionally good for my understanding of the house; I cleaned intentionally, I figured out the configuration of furniture that I liked, and I even spent time in all the rooms of the house, just to switch things up. Still, when I’m overwhelmed or bored or in-between in any of a million ways, I return to the kitchen.

This morning I woke with a start realizing we’d left the GoSun, with cut bell peppers in it, out in the yard – thank goodness it wasn’t super sunny on this Saturday morning, so they were just pleasantly cool. As with one out of every four dishes in the GoSun, finishing them off in a pan is fine if you just don’t have the time or the sunlight. But almost instantly, even though I was super sleepy running downstairs, being in the kitchen reoriented me. I’m noticing how all this sounds scary in something like a “traditional family roles” way, but it’s not like that – I don’t have a problem with anyone’s way of dividing labor in a household, and Husband and I are definitely still figuring it out. What I have found in the kitchen is a long-term project: there’s usually something to clean, something gross to throw away, something to prepare or freeze for the winter, or a cupboard I can gaze at, thinking of the possibilities for the day’s meals.

We’ve had a lot of guests lately, so I have been eating out, making frozen pizzas so that we can all sit and chat in the living room, generally not forcing my guests to try things I’ve never made before full of unfamiliar ingredients, but I’m setting a weekend intention to start writing out all the sweet recipes I have received from fellow bloggers via this post (and any new ones that arrive!) and start trying at least one a week. I’ll still be posting about the garden and the cooking life, but I’m getting back into the main goal of this blog: connecting with people over the recipes they share with me, and enjoying the way that using my kitchen for that kind of cooking brings me joy.

Picture is not mine – this beauty was taken by my friend E, of one-pan pasta fame. 🙂