My Little Kitchen

(I hope it's okay I borrow your blog-name Cathy - I couldn't come up with a better title!)

I think I mentioned a while back that I had this series of pictures from my kitchen, already uploaded and ready for a post. Well, now it's about time I use them, because this Saturday, October 1st. - we're moving! Which naturally implies getting a new kitchen - not much larger, but new it will be.

And you know what? I'm getting just a tiny bit nostalgic about it.

So it's small. But I always knew exactly where everything was. Flour? Reach up, it's in that big jar on the top shelf over the counter. Extra salt? Well, do you need Maldon or regular? And how much? There are small jars on the small shelf over the stove - extra Maldon over the sink, regular in the cupboard over the counter next to the sink. Big knife, small knife? Choose. Cake tins and loaf pans? Cupboard down on your left.

We never installed a real garbage bin. We never got those higher counter tops. The exhaustion had a weird sound - sometimes. The floors - hm. And there were just too many things in there. Couldn't have been my fault, nooooo siree!;-)

This is where I made many a bread, cake, risotto and salad. This was the kitchen in which I was re-introduced to the joy of meat. This is were I've done many a meal, whether catering, or just preparing a feast for my friends or family.

Here is where I enjoyed the suns rays shining through my tea-glass as it awaited me taking out the steeping leaves, standing next to the sink.

My Mom says it's a joy to see me working in that kitchen. She'd pull one of the chairs from the living room and put it in the door opening, and sit there and chat to me while I prepared our dinner. She said my motions were always so calm, not a wasted move anywhere. I was concentrated, yet talkative, stirring pots, cleaning salad, kneading bread. I blame it all on habit. That and well - it was my kitchen.

Many a time, I was sitting in my "office" (well, a small room we made into my office), studying, while Martin made dinner. I could hear him chopping, bacon sizzling, and suddenly, he'd be in the door opening: can you taste this mayo for me? Does it need more salt? Or sometimes, just giving me a kiss, then returning to his chores in the kitchen.

And we made dinner together there. Sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. The good kind of silence. You know, the kind were you know what the person next to you is going to say, or do. You don't really have to speak to each other, but it turns out he's started the dressing while you turned your back because you wanted to wash the leaves for the salad.

This is the place form where Food & Thoughts was born, and has been nurtured for the last year. But you know what? Even though I'm a bit sappy about it now (maybe it's the moving boxes stacked up around me that does it?) I'm pretty sure there's plenty of adventures for me in the new one. But Thank You, old Kitchen - you were a blast!

And PS: We're SO bringing that stove!