I have recently come to an epiphany: I love my kitchen more than I love most people on this earth. It’s kind of strange to think that a room in my house makes me feel more emotions than the majority of people I meet. I am totally obsessed with food, as most people are. But I’m also like the typical HGTV loving mom who is now very interested in Carrera marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. For me, simply being in my kitchen makes me instantly happier. I think that kitchens have some kind of strange but fascinating element to them that somehow gives people the power to create hundreds of meals for hundreds of people.
This is coming off a bit weird, I know. Before you pick up your phone and tell the counseling center that some weird girl on the internet is ranting about kitchens to anyone who reads her articles, let me explain why I am obsessed with them in the first place.
Food is Love, Food is Life
Obviously, the kitchen main reason for existence is for food. And sure, to some (very "special") people, food can be a just be a boring thing you kinda have to prioritize three times a day because bad things will happen if you don’t. But for the majority of people, especially for me, (one of the few occurrences where I am not a minority), food is seriously a precious blessing from up above. For people like me, we appreciate the goodness and beauty of any and all food. Whether it’s food you get from McDonalds drive-thru at 11pm to a six-course meal in a world-class restaurant, every meal is considered beautiful (at least to me anyways).
However, I think the most beautiful food in the world is made in a family kitchen. There is no other place in the world that contains as much passion and love as a home kitchen. But don’t get me wrong. Of course, there are occupational kitchens and restaurant kitchens that produce the most unbelievable food in the whole world. There is so much dedication and creativity involved in the process of making beautiful food and bringing happiness to people. But those very same elements come from an important place: the home kitchen. Almost every chef can attest that their experiences in their own home kitchens have influenced them to become who they are. Without the magic of being in a kitchen, there is no motivation and inspiration to create innovative and unique food. The whole art would be lost, and the beauty of it would disappear.
The Room Where It Happens
The kitchen is the gateway to a whole new world of shining, shimmering, splendid goodness. Even if you argue that the kitchen is literally just four walls in a house where you make food, there’s no way you can argue that a lot happens in that one place. Face it, you could probably tell me at least one good and one bad moment that happened in your kitchen. Whether your parents are simply cooking up dinner or you’re telling your family that really funny and embarrassing story at school, the warmth of a kitchen makes everything feel ten times more magical. Everything that happens in a kitchen adds onto its character. When entire stories, traditions, family recipes, and even entire cultures get passed down in kitchens, you might get the suspicion that kitchens are much more than four walls in a house.
Think about all the things that happen in one family kitchen in one given night. Now think about that family’s entire lifetime plus the generations after that. Now multiply that by that by the number of people living in the world (I know, your mind just got blown). I’m not trying to get you to go into an existential crisis. But when you’re in a place in the house where that is possible, that fact alone should bring you to nirvana.
Even though kitchens always change cosmetically, they are all capable of making people feel the same way. If kitchens were people, they would all say that they have seen anger, frustration, yelling, and disappointment. But they would also say that they have seen growth, creativity, passion, excitement, and love. They all serve the same purpose: to create food. But it’s so much more than that.
