Wednesday March 30 2016  SEARCHING FOR THE RIGHT THING

Life has a way of teaching, even when you don’t necessarily want to learn.  So is working in the domain of another’s kitchen.  I have cooked in a myriad of homes. It is my pleasure to concoct wonderful dishes, but it is a bit of a challange looking for what you need in a foreign kitchen.  “Foreign” in this instance has a definition of words found in the thesaurus to mean: “distant, far-off, extraneous, alien, external, and remote.”  There are several other definitions but these are the ones that best refer to cooking in another’s  territory.  It’s one thing if the owner of the home is present verses when they are not on the premise.  Pros and cons for both.

If the owner is close by they are usually helpful in finding a tool you cannot find.  Everything from spices, to graters, to certain pots and pans.  When they are not available for help a lot of rummaging must be done to locate (or not) the item for which you are searching.  The really negative side of not having knowledge of where everything is located, is the possible necessity of taking everything out of the lower cabinets and upper cupboards and then not having a clue how it all fits back in.  So that was my dilemma today.

For the last couple of days I have carefully spied Rebecca as she worked in her kitchen and tried desperately to memorize exactly where everything lived in her meticulously organized, perfect for her, kitchen.  Until you must get everything out of the cupboards to find what you are searching for, you have no idea of how much stuff can be “organized” into such a small area.  And for some reason it just doesn’t all seem to fit back in.  I assure you, even though I did get everything put away and out of sight (thanks to putting a lot of the dishes in the dishwasher), I know for certain that I probably didn’t get it all organized to Rebecca’s specifications.

I did the best I could.  Maybe she’ll read this blog eventually and give a little pity to her “old” mother.  Besides, maybe she’ll even like it better the way it is now.  But I doubt it.  Oh well, the dinner is baking in the oven and I know it will be delicious.

Rebecca’s kitchen showed me a parallel to life.  Every day that I live it seems that I learn at least one more lesson.  I must draw on past experiences in order to deal with what comes my way.  When you really think about it, living each day is like living in a “foreign” kitchen.  When a dilemma comes along you must use past knowledge to put all the pieces together in order to concoct a solution for pulling your life back together. So it was with Rebecca’s kitchen today.  It was simple to get everything out (except for the weight of her heavy pots and pans), but once everything was scattered all over the kitchen it took all my organizational skills from kindergarten’s stacking lessons to all the puzzle solving methods I’ve learned over the course of my lifetime.

But, in the long run, I was certainly glad that neither Rebecca nor Neil were home during today’s escapade.  It is now 6:47 p.m. and Neil just came home.  Whew!  I was able to have everything looking serene and peaceful before he walked in the door.  I told Dave, “I’ll do the cooking, but I won’t do it if they are home”.  I’ll be safely asleep in bed before Rebecca arrives home.  Maybe she won’t look in the cupboards until tomorrow while I am working out at the gym.

KITCHEN DILEMMA

By Kathleen Martens

March 30, 2016

Pots and pans

And dishes galore.

Wherever I look

There are more.

Just the right skillet

Is a must

To make certain

There is no fuss.

The perfect size,

The perfect cup.

Everything measured

On what we sup.

A recipe is but

A science experiment,

But it takes precision

To make it coherent.

A little bit of this

A little bit of that,

And nothing will work

If ingredients lack.

So the mad scientist

Scours around

The entire kitchen

Until perfection is found.

But then there’s the mess

When all is done.

And putting everything back

Is rarely fun.

Everything multiplied

And now there’s no room

To put it all back

Before disaster looms.

But when it is finished

Not quite like before,

The counters are clear

As I close the cupboard door.

Now if the food

Turns out great

Perhaps my ending

Will have a better fate.

Thank You Lord for the food You provide for me to cook.

Thank You Lord for the oven to cook it in.

Thank You for my daughter’s home.

Thank You Lord that she still trusts me enough to allow me access to her beautiful kitchen.

Thank You Lord for pots and pans even if they weigh a ton!

GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS YOU.

P.S.  I’ll let you know how it all turns out tomorrow!