Be Not Idle

Ambrose-a-rama (see blogroll) wrote recently about how she misses American-style kitchens in which family and friends gather. By her description, it seems as if Chinese kitchens have the same utilitarian and closed-to-guest qualities as a laundryroom. 

That got me to thinking about how, until I moved into this house, most of the kitchens I’ve been in have had a counter or “passthrough” separating it from the dining area. That doesn’t mean that people didn’t gather in the kitchen; it meant that they usually stood up when they did.   The passthroughs kept a nice distance between the busy cook and her guests.  (Holidays weren’t complete until Mom snapped “Get out of my kitchen!” to a would-be moocher, most often Dad.)

The passthroughs were the perfect height for leaning, or were short enough to be accompanied by barstools.  Cleaning up afterwards is a group project, with the table cleared of dirty dishes and immediately filled with whatever game is beginning.  Most nights it’s either a card game or a cribbage game. And there is always talking back and forth. 

My father recalls his mother and aunts in the kitchen, laughing and chattering like magpies. He gets a happy smile on his face when he talks about it.

The exception to the passthrough was the old farmhouses like the Kennedy home and, until recently, my eldest brother’s house. Those rambling houses had a breakfast table in the kitchen and a diningroom adjoining.

But whether the kitchen had a table or not, one rule held true for Michigan houses: The most-used door was the kitchen door. It didn’t matter where the front door was. Family and friends entered by the kitchen door.  My grandparents’ home in Marquette had a nice porch and a portucus leading into the livingroom.  My father would bring the luggage in and out through that door, but that was it. The rest of the time, we dashed up the walkway past the garage and bounded up the steps to the kitchen door. The smell was always a combination of cooking and a clean underlying smell. 

At my maternal grandparents’s house, the front door was treated more like a really big window.  We’d walk into the garage, then through the mudroom that led to the kitchen. My grandmother made her own bread, and that scent mingled with the ever-present ghost of cigarettes.

My house is set up differently than those I’ve loved in my childhood.  The front door leads into the livingroom, which leads into a kitchen with a dining area.  The kitchen door is a sliding glass door that locks from within.  One of the things on my To Do list, which my parents have also mentioned, is to replace the existing door with a regular door that I could open from the outside.

 Why?

 So everyone could walk past my front door and come in through the kitchen! 

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