Kitchen

The kitchen is the centre of the home, the place where all can gather together, sharing warmth, food, and conversation. This is where the provider of nourishment serves the household and reigns supreme. The provider of nourishment is at one and the same time the servant and the monarch.

In wintertime, the kitchen is where warmth can be found; generated by baking and cooking in the oven, and boiling of kettles for tea and pots of vegetables or stew. Here, too, is where the mother figure provides generous hugs along with freshly baked treats as they appear hot from the oven.

In summertime, before the advent of air-conditioning or microwaves to keep the kitchens cool in hot, humid days, the pioneers had summer kitchens where cooking and baking could be done outside the main house—protected from rain but open to the air and cooling breezes.

Nowadays, of course, there are bakeries, super-markets, and restaurants where we can get a ready-made meal for our families without having to heat up our homes and make ourselves uncomfortable.

I bake my own bread and muffins on a regular basis. Because I am diabetic, I feel it is better for me—I know the ingredients and can avoid too much sweetener and fat. For about five years I have used a bread machine to bake my bread but recently I have had trouble with the machines. They have been breaking down too often and I wasn’t willing to put out the extra money needed to replace the poorly made machines so often.

I have gone back to mixing and kneading the ingredients by hand, a more time-consuming method of rising and baking the bread; I love the feel of the living dough beneath my hands—the trinity of turns bringing the yeast to life—and the smell of the baking bread in my kitchen.

The kitchen is the centre of the home, the place where the bread and nourishment of life is found, and the place where family, friends and guests can gather, feel at home and share the love.