A Kitchen Konfession Story
…no, its not about kitchen gadgets
I was inspired to write this after reading Stuart James stories about Kitchen Klutter, apparently becoming aware that he had just too many utensils on hand, which had been accumulated over many years. If you’re interested, here is the first story…
And I must admit, I’ve been pretty fascinated by all the kitchen gadgets and their intended uses to make life easier.
if I’m not mistaken, it was a 100 word writing prompt to be done everyday. I remember doing this last year, I believe I started at this same time and finished all the way through Christmas. I may think of doing it again, if time permits.
But enough about Stuart and his Inspector Gadget stuff…
Ah yes…
A picture of a kitchen in the 50's…
I vaguely remember my grandmothers kitchen.
Her table wasn’t red like this one, but it was a bright yellow. I remember getting stuck to it, on the back of my legs, because of the vinyl and little kids sweat.
I would look down at the floor, very similar to this floor, that checkerboard pattern. I had black leather patent shoes back then, and I would position my shoes over the black squares, and my shoe would disappear from sight.
My grandmother was always cooking. Or sewing. I do remember her sitting down for her favorite soap operas, because I would sit with her. General Hospital and Dark Shadows were her favorites. As a child seeing Dark Shadows scared me to death. Barnabus Collins was a pretty frightening creature, to say the least.
I found some of the old episodes on YouTube and boy, are they cheesy to look at now. But I sat there watching those episodes, and it truly put a smile on my face.
Memories of my grandmother, either in the kitchen, or in the living room, are pretty precious to me. I’m pretty lucky I got to spend my early formative years with my grandparents, and when I got older, after I turned 18, I moved in with them and took care of them till I got married, but even then, when they called, I came to help, with errands or the doctor appointments or taking my grandmother to the mall. ( she loved the Estée Lauder cosmetics counter)
In the kitchen, I would watch her cook and from time to time, she would pull the step stool up to the counter and tell me to climb up and watch her. I’d watch her cut up vegetables, meat, bread, mix recipes ( cans of Carnation Pet Milk seems to come to mind)
I remember my mom telling me I was lucky to watch grandma cook, because when my mom was young and little, my grandma would keep her out of the kitchen, because she got in the way. Sometimes I think my mom wished that grandma would have been a bit more motherly to her when she was young…
I can still remember when grandma would pour milk into my cereal out of the glass jars, and her letting me set the metal basket of jars right outside the door so the milkman could pick it up and replace them with filled ones full of milk.
Even now, when I do anything in the kitchen, and I happen to be wearing red nail polish, I can see my grandmothers hands.
When it came time to put the pennies in rolled up coin stacks, I would do that with her, too.
She would show me how to pop the red paper cylinder open and slowly shove the pennies inside, without them falling out at the other end. And of course, my pennies ALWAYS fell out the other end.
But no matter what I was doing, she never raised her voice in anger at me, in fact, neither did my grandfather. The only time I ever heard my grandfather raise his voice was when I ran in front of him to cross the street, and he yanked me back up onto the sidewalk.
I have stories, too, about my grandfather, but not in the kitchen, but right now it’s all about my grandmother. I’ll tell those other stories some other time.
With my granddaughter, I try to set the same example with her, even though she is a bit more rambunctious than I was. Whenever I cook, or watch TV, we sit together. We don’t do the penny stacking thing, but we do PlayDoh, video games, watch other families play video games on YouTube, and with the PlayDoh, we do pretend cooking, and yes, we have baked cookies together…and we can be pretty silly, too. This is her being funny when she ate her banana…
And her with the googly eyed glasses( which, of course, I bought!)
Yeah…
So, I think when I can, I’m going to purchase one of those vintage kitchen tables, with the vinyl seats, like this one…
Or this one…
I want her to have some memories of the backs of her legs sticking to them on a warm summer day, while she’s eating her favorite cereal, as I pour her milk into the bowl…
I guess that’s my Kitchen Konfession, without the Klutter.
Thanks Stuart.
