State of the Art...State of Mind

I am the third homemaker to occupy the kitchen in my home. I don’t know much about the original owners, but I know the lady who was mistress of this space before I arrived spent 14 years in it, caring for a family of six. I took over in 1988 and fed my own family of six here until the last child left home in 2004.

No one would call this a “state of the art” kitchen. In 2004 I got a gas stove for it, which was a welcome improvement, but the rest of the appliances and the space itself are definitely showing their age. I wish there was more counter space, but here have always been more important things to spend money on than a new kitchen. On the other hand, the walls here resonate with happy memories and the space is so familiar I can move around in it with my eyes closed.

Homemaking is a state of mind that doesn’t really require state of the art anything. My kitchen has produced countless nourishing family meals, been the center of years of holiday celebrations and often been crowded with my daughter and daughters-in-law chatting and laughing as we prepared a meal together. We have served meals to as many as 30 people at tables in three rooms of the house at Thanksgiving. Lots of noise and lots of fun.

My mother-in-law once pointed out that all a good cook really needs is a good knife, a large fork and a big spoon to stir with. Of course, a cook also needs a few pots and pans, a big mixing bowl and a cutting board, but she knew what she was talking about, having made her first home as a bride in post-World War II England when even the most basic of kitchen equipment was hard to come by. She and my father-in-law didn’t go out for meals. She cooked and he joined her at the little table right next to the stove in their tiny kitchen where he gratefully ate what she prepared.

It’s not the gear in the kitchen, but the heart in the homemaker that makes for memorable meals. M.F.K Fisher summed it up this way:

“I, with my brain and my hands have nourished my beloved few.
I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish
to sustain them truly against the hunger of the world.”

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