#60 - Kitchens

A couple from Washington, D.C., walked into our kitchen and stood in the middle of it, gazing around with great interest. One of them made the comment, "Now this is a real country kitchen." It sounded kind of like a compliment; at least it was offered in a polite tone.

Wincing a bit, my wife said, “Yes, I suppose you're right."

I immediately began to wonder what a fake country kitchen might be like. I, too, looked around and determined that, to me at least, everything in the room looked pretty real. Really real, actually. But what was it about the room that had sparked this commentary from our capitol? It could have been any number of things: the seductive smell of onions on the stove, maybe, or the much-worn floor and all the boots and shoes that did the wearing lined up against the wall, or the fly-paper hanging from the ceiling. “This is where we spend most of our indoor time, doing stuff," I was thinking, “and here's all the paraphernalia we do it with. How do you fake it?" Well . . . I let it drop, since it really didn't matter much.

But now and then since, thumbing through magazines, I have been noticing pictures of kitchens in advertisements and in articles with titles like "A Kitchen Grandma Would Have Felt at Home In" and "Country Charm with Modern Convenience." The folks from Washington, it seemed, might have been onto something.

The "Grandma’s Kitchen" category generally oozes with so much “vintage charm” that it would take several housekeepers whole days to make a clean sweep through all the checkered tablecloths and hanging wicker wear, shining copper pots and colanders and dusting off Canada Goose decoys. "Kitchens Out of Grandma's Nightmares” would make more sense.

My guess is that a tired-out grandma would much prefer a few more of the buttons from the second category of kitchens with some modern convenience. Filling her crockery cookie jar with a Dozen-At-A-Whack Dough-Gun might upset her sensibilities a bit, but she’d bless her lucky stars for that new trash compactor after she’d got her foot stuck in the trash basket one time too many. “Convenience with Charm" is certainly something to opt for – only a little less “charm,” thank you.

Just the same, there is an incongruity about the latest, ice-slinging refrigerator built into a worm-eaten, Cypress-paneled wall. And while the thermal-boosted brewer with the classy label, "Coffee Climax," on its “smoked” plastic cover dribbles aromatically on the countertop, over in the corner sits a conspicuous burlap bag of "Mountain Grown" beans, its edges roll down to reveal a rough-hewn wooden scoop. A nice, earthy mix of beans and glowing digital readouts, I think to myself, but it's about as believable as the Columbian forest on the Moon. A certain truthfulness seems wanting in those pictures.

There's no dust on the top shelves. There's no scratching dog and no stack of just-opened bills on the table. And there are no people - they've gone jogging to the office with radios coming out of their ears. And the floor looks as though Mr. Clean just skidded out of sight around the corner.

I guess our visitors from Washington, if anyone, should know "real" when they see it.      "Real," in the case of our kitchen, is: "alive," "organic," "functional," "witness to everything that goes on in this place." Now I know what they meant. In this one room is warmth, seven or eight cords of wood passing through it in a year. It’s also a first-aid station, scientific laboratory, library, business office, communication center, weather observatory, entertainment hall, animal nursery, picture gallery, general workshop and dining room. At regular times of the day, we even cook in our kitchen.

Now that I look at it this way, I see why we have so much trouble keeping paint on the floor, and why my wife winces at visitors from Washington.