KITCHENS (A-Z April Blog Challenge)

I wrote this poem 18 years ago.  I'm glad I shared it with my mom before she passed in 2009.

“The Kitchen”

I’m in the kitchen. Again.

This room with it’s

endless capacity.

To Create. To Comfort.

Provide Solace and Laughter.

Sustenance and Memories.

Is everyone’s life so

centered in their kitchen?

So deeply connected with the food

made here, the memories, so

much a part of their self?

In my mother’s kitchen,

I sat on a phone book, mesmerized

And the Paas continued in my kitchen!

by the Paas liquid rainbow

before me in the assortment of

jelly jars and glasses.

Thin metal holders barely balanced

the eggs as they were dipped and

laid on cooling racks to dry.

In December, Anise cut outs announced

the holiday season. They were rolled,

cut and decorated on the third-generation

cutting board that took up half

the kitchen table. Flour dusted the board,

covering wood darkened

with age and use. In my kitchen, I follow

the same recipe, yet they’re not quite the same.

my mother, the keeper of the board.

For years the kitchen was a place for late

night talks with mom over a bowl of

cereal before bed. Then we stopped.

I don’t know why.

Rarely now, but often enough, I find myself

alone, in the kitchen, having a bowl of cereal.

I wonder, does she ever do the same,

all these years later,

alone, in her kitchen?

I clean as I go in my kitchen. When four

steps by two take you the full perimeter,

it’s a necessity.

It’s calming to go from the mess

to the organized clean.

I wash the dishes, sponge fully lathered,

rinsing with steaming water so

hot it burns my fingertips. I was never the

washer in my mother’s kitchen. Older

sisters go the jobs of washing and putting away.

Today I leave my dishes in the

drainer to dry.

I show my son how to make one of my

childhood favorites, Filled Noodles.

Basic pasta dough from scratch,

rolled and cut into squares that accommodate

a handful of turkey stuffing.  Boiled in salted

water and served with piping cream of chicken soup.

He closes his eyes with the first bite,

quietly says, “a bit of heaven”.

My hear swells.

At age five he watches the

Frugal Gourmet with me. Father’s

Day is coming and he decides to

make the Bowtie Pasta dish

being made. I supervise the cutting

And the stove, but he

makes the recipe himself. He smiles

with pride as he calls Dad to the dinner table.

This is “his’recipe now and

a family tradition is born.

  
Some days, bagels double their size

on the countertop.

Boiled in sugar water, then baked

to produce a soft inside, surrounded

by a crunchy golden crust.

In fall and winter, breads rise in pans

and fill the house with an intoxicating



yeast aroma. The best ones resulting

when I knead out a worry on the dough.

Every few days baked goods of all kinds

find their way to the countertop. To friends.

To work. To a neighbors house. I care about you,

they whisper.

My husband, long accustomed to, but still

appreciative of meals of marinated balsamic

filet mignon, herb rice pilaf and crisp

garden salads.  He enjoys just as much,

a dinner of pancakes or tomato soup. 

A selection of

hundreds of recipes wait, cut and taped

onto notebook paper and sorted in a

three ring binder by sections.

Desserts warrant a binder all to themselves.

Both books wait, nestled between the

Cookbooks on the shelf.

So, I’m in the kitchen. Again.

Where to begin?


Yes, these are my scratch raisin bagels - YUM!