Laurie Colwin once said, “No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
I remember when I was very little watching my grandmother,"Grammy" cook at their old house that was part of the hardware store--pot roasts and cranberry pudding with caramel sauce. The kitchen was a place we spent a lot of time in: talking, waiting for food, socializing or just passing through on our way somewhere else. It was the center of that old house. And my parent's home was much the same way. It's the first place you go to congregate, to wait for coffee, to bake cookies in, but mostly it's a place to spend time in the company of family.
In our house now, even though the kitchen isn't very big, it's a place all parties like to happen--Abe waiting for the latest droppings and Gabriel stirring his bowl of "key soup." Our little kitchen too, seems to be the place to congregate. And I guess I'm ok with that, even if the kitchen is a total disaster or I feel like I am constantly tripping over pots and pans and smaller bodies (did I mention that I've started using the "baby prison" I put in the kitchen)--it seems to foster of love of fine cuisine and of our little kitchen community.
When I got married and moved away, I took with me a little folder of recipes to which I have added a collection of recipes from all sides of the family, along with recipes of my own and ones I have found over the past few years. Perhaps someday I will get creative and create an actual little book of them to give to Gabriel when he moves out of the house in a... very.... long... time.... But for now, I like the open-endedness of it, the fact that I can add new recipes to it anytime. It leaves the possibilities of new recipes to be found and many more hours spent in the kitchen with my boys.
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