Your Mama's Kitchen

 

Photo courtesy of Time Detective Gallery

I recently started listening to a podcast on Audible called "Your Mama's Kitchen."  It is a brand new podcast and only has two episodes available so far, and I have listened to both of them.  

The concept is that the host invite people of some celebrity or fame to visit with her about memories of their childhood kitchens, traditions their family had, what life experiences were had at the kitchen table, etc.  Then the guest shares at least one recipe from their mama's kitchen.  

It's quite interesting to listen to, and it brought back memories of my own childhood kitchen.  The first 10 years of my life we had a tiny, tiny kitchen for the five of us, and if the dishwasher door was open, there was no room to walk between it and the table.  

I know, I know.  We were blessed to even have a dishwasher.  I get it; right now it's beside the point I'm trying to make.  My mom made a lot of meals, holiday dinners, and birthday cakes in that kitchen.  

There was a built-in china hutch that served as the wall between the kitchen and the living room where all of the tableware was stored.  The refrigerator was at the narrow end of the kitchen, tucked right in next to the stove.  I can't imagine that was very energy efficient but it was the only layout that worked in that tiny space.  The work space was the counter area, maybe 8 or 10 feet long, with the sink at the very end of the counter right inside the front door.  

My strongest memory of that kitchen was when Baby Brother had a snit fit one morning.  Maybe it was because Big Brother and I were heading off to school and he had to stay home; I'm not sure.  Whatever set him off led him to chuck his wooden train toy across that kitchen where it connected with the bottom left corner of Dad's 55-gallon fish tank.  

Let's all take a collective gasp.  Fifty-five gallons of water came pouring out across the nicked and worn linoleum kitchen floor.  Big Brother and I hot-footed it out the door and left poor Mom to deal with (1) a cranky toddler, (2) a flooded kitchen floor, and (3) a dozen homeless fish.

It wasn't too many years after that when there was massive construction at Chez Brehmer.  Not only did Mom and Dad add onto the kitchen 8 feet in two directions, they had an attached garage built and resided the big old four-square farmhouse.  It was an all-summer project.  

Chet Briggs was the contractor; I don't know why I remember his name because I don't remember the name of the guy who worked with him every day.  

Every construction project has fits and starts.  I remember the first one that came up in this project was when the big picture window and the front door were framed in and Dad didn't like the layout.  After much discussion and scribbling numbers on a piece of paper, they approved having Chet switch them around.  It was a delay and an extra cost, but I remember how much Dad enjoyed being able to look out that picture window in the evenings after chores and see all of his cows content and peaceful in the pasture.  

They also had an extra cost to replace one of the garage windows because their favorite daughter was playing floor hockey with a broom and a superball that ended badly.  Broken window, bad words, and a butt-swatting.  

The garage was the summer kitchen.  All of the appliances, the table and chairs, and all the tableware were moved to the garage, and that's where we dined for the summer.  It was cooler for Mom to do her canning that summer because she could open up the overhead garage door and let the breeze in.  And the bugs, but she preferred the breeze and put up with the bugs.  

I've talked before about the conflict of favorite colors in our house.  Mom like red/orange/yellow and dad liked blue.  Ask anyone who visited our house after the kitchen remodel, and they will all say, "It was orange."  No lie.  The soffit was panted Allis Chalmers orange, the countertops were more of a flame orange with a crackled effect, and the front door was blaze orange with white accent squares...easily seen from the end of our half-mile long driveway!

I have to give Dad credit because it had to be hard for him to sit in that orange kitchen when he would have preferred it to be blue.  But come to think of it, the bathroom was blue, so I guess they found a compromise.  

That kitchen remodel project has been on my mind a lot lately because we are going to be doing our own kitchen remodel this winter.  The plans are being drawn up as I write this, and we have had more than our share of...ahem...discussions about layout, materials, color choices, and cost.  

I have to take Captain's opinion into consideration because he does all of the cooking.  I do some baking and all of the canning, but little to no actual meal preparation.  However, I am not my dad, and I drew the line at a red kitchen.  Red is not in my color wheel and I would never be comfortable with that color scheme.  

My other two lines in the sand were that I wanted a double-basin, double-drainboard reinforced cast acrylic sink and no upper cabinetry except over the stove.  Before you raise your eyebrows at that, remember that I am fun-sized and have a hard time reaching the top shelf of the fridge much less the top shelf of an upper cabinet.  

Oh wait, there is one other line in the sand, and this one has been a major bone of contention.  I want the new flooring to be the same for the entire main floor (excluding our offices and my bathroom).  Captain thinks each room should have its own flooring.  Can we say "so 1980s"?

The other major upgrade we'll do is convert a bedroom closet into a pantry by closing it off in my office and opening it up in the kitchen.  That's not a hard line in the sand yet, but it could come to that.  

We'll see how it goes.  I had them start with all the bells and whistles in the plans and we'll cut back from there.  This is why I work part-time at Fareway, so I can have some of my bells and whistles!

This kitchen has served us well for 20 years, but it's getting tired, and I'm getting tired of it.  So we will give it a "freshen up" as my grandma used to call it.