in the kitchen

The kitchen is my sanctuary. It's the one place in the house I can go and get blissfully lost in the work I'm doing. Maybe it's because the kids know that if they will just leave mom alone for a bit, something yummy is coming. Maybe they sense that I need, NEED the catharsis of making SOMETHING. Maybe it's the combination of both, because they sure have a fit when I try to make anything that isn't edible. Either way, the kitchen is my special, happy place. I work out my creative urges, and release some stress in the process. Bread-making probably tops the list of my favorite kitchen-time activities. I enjoy the timelessness of it, the nostalgia, the sense that I am tied to the past, to my ancestors, to women everywhere throughout history that have worked out their frustrations (and fed their families) on a lump of dough. In fact, I've gotten downright ritualistic about it. I wear my Nonnie's apron, gifted to me by my grandfather this past winter. I stir the dough with my grandma's wooden spoon, old and showing who knows how many years of use. I cover the dough with my Ga-Ga's tea towel. It's stained and it has a few holes and has seen better days, but I love it. If I ever get my hands on an antique wooden dough bowl, I might actually swoon. Though I have never swooned. Except when I was 14 months pregnant and Davey was getting his eyebrow stitched back together. But I digress. The point is that I love the feeling that each one of those beautiful ladies is there with me, represented in the treasured items that I'm fortunate enough to have had passed on to me. And in the art of cooking, which they passed down to me, and I'm so fortunate to have learned from them. I look forward to passing this down to my own girls some day, so that they can make their escapes to the kitchen and commune with their past.

(Just the other night, Davey made mac and cheese with the girls. They pulled their tiny chairs up to the stove, put on their cute little aprons (Punkin made very sure that Daddy wore an apron, too) and helped to boil and stir and mix. Since that night they've made mac and cheese at least twice, and every time, Punkin will not get started until they are all wearing their aprons. She may look like her Daddy, but there's a lot of Mama in there, too. :)