Red Countertops

One of the first things my daughter asked for when putting together our schedule for this year was a cooking class. We have done cooking classes before and she loves them. What kid doesn't want to be a Master Chef Jr?! I could have done what I have done in the past and picked up the phone to schedule a class at Eckerts or Schnucks & honestly I highly considered it! Seriously who wants to clean the kitchen after your little chef has been 'creating their masterpiece'? ugh! Honestly I get great joy out of a sparkly clean kitchen.

Then I remembered how much I treasured cooking & baking with my mom growing up. The first meal I ever made my husband was taught to me in that kitchen with bright red counter tops & a country apple border. My mind can slip back there so effortlessly as if it were yesterday and yet it has been nearly 2 decades since I have lived at home with my parents (yes, I left the nest a bit early ;)  I smile over the memories, lots of chats, politics, disagreements over clothes, boys, friendships, school work, sisters, creating dishes with my middle sister, snow day cookies, holiday cookies, late night pazookie, home-made french fries & fried zucchini will forever be my comfort food,... So many sweet memories I have come from a simple kitchen with less than impressive kitchen gadgets; handheld mixers, dull knives, old stained cookie sheets, plates patterned with apples & green checkers (Mom, if you are reading I need one of these plates for my plate wall). In a moment of sweet bliss as my mind pulled some of my favorite moments, some that made me chuckle, some embarrassing, humbling, hilarious, but each one deeply embedded into my heart.

My recollection came to a screeching halt and my heart gridlocked for a moment as my mind soared through these beloved, treasured moments; I can not for the life of me remember if I ever cleaned that red kitchen, I don't recall ever scrubbing a pot, loading the dishes, filing the utensils away, wiping the flour off the counter, or scrubbing the oil splatters off the back splash. Maybe my mind is failing me but I don't even remember my mom asking me to clean up the monstrosity. I know some of you are already judging her parenting... she was not teaching you responsibility if she didn't make you clean it up.... blah blah blah...Or maybe she saw the bigger picture, the picture I so greatly desire to see. She saw that cooking was so much more than cooking. That 20 years later I would wish I could go back for just one night & sit on those hard wooden chairs, and I would hang on her every word, I would see what she saw in me. It has nothing to do with the dicing & measuring but had everything to do with the sharing that happens around the table That in this deranged life, you have to take the small moments & make them monumental. Cooking was partaking in each other's life. She didn't care that the dishes were clean, she cared that our hearts were unsoiled, the pot could sit & soak and the pot would eventually come clean, but our souls could be tarnished, the sugar & the flour could spill because in those moments she got to pour out her love on me, even if it was just for a few minutes while we sat on the red counter waiting for the cookies to finish baking.

I recently had a conversation with my husband. I was going through a difficult time & told him about how growing up my mom would always make me home made french fries late at night. I was having a homemade french fry kinda night. No, a big ol' bowl of greasy taters certainly would not going to help my thighs but it sure did always make my soul feel better. Call me an emotional eater ;) LOL. I totally get why it is called soul food. Hey, we all have our weakness, for some its ice-cream, for me its anything fried. The thing is it has nothing at all to do with the food, but the memories & love that surround the food. It was that at midnight, while she could have been sleeping, she would chop up a real potato (not that out of the bag imitation potato stuff), heat up the pan, make the yummiest treats ever & it was usually followed by a late night talk. Funny the things we take for granted.

So when my 8 yr old asked for a cooking class, my mind took a detour. I said, how about we pick a night and we can cook together? She really liked that idea and wanted to plan the menu. My kitchen may look like a bomb went off, my pots & pans may loose their sparkle, and my knives may be dull but maybe just maybe it will be so much more than cooking, maybe she will share with me the bombs in her life, she'll pour out the days that steal her sparkle or the moments I can sprinkle a little more sparkle back into her, and hopefully she will find love & comfort in the dull moments, that the dull moments in life are often the ones that hold the greatest memories, like those 10 minutes sitting on the red counter.