Remember “Get Out In That Kitchen and Rattle Those Pots and Pans”

La Creuset , Cuisinart, Staub, KitchenAid are familiar names around the kitchen now days.   We have choices of color, stick or nonstick, metal, silicone, bamboo, wood and wire.  I love to browse kitchen shops and look at the wonderful gadgets.  Mom shopped at JC Penney and Montgomery Wards.  Those were the two main chain stores in Chillicothe.  There was the Stanley brush salesman that came to the house and the Watkins man.  They didn’t have the hardware–those gorgeous pots and pans and baking dishes.

Kitchens tend to be the heart of the house.  Laughing, dancing,  teasing  and even some cooking happens here.   It’s comfortable to sit around and play games or visit   Our first house had a very small kitchen, the walk through type.    I prefer the kind we had that could accommodate two tables for playing cards on New Years Eve.

Our farm kitchen was an built onto the east side of the house.  The original house wasn’t built for two families.  A door in the dining room wall opened to the kitchen. Along the south kitchen wall was a door to go onto the porch then the counter with the kitchen sink.    The east side featured cabinets, windows and the cooking stove.  The door on the north side went out to the back porch and back yard.  Each door had it’s own shotgun hanging at the top.  Great feasts were prepared in that room with only Wearever cookware and wooden spoons.  Whacking the side of a pot or pan with a metal spoon was high crime.

Mom managed to talk Dad into a new floor covering for the kitchen.  The old linoleum was well worn and the heaviest tracking areas wouldn’t wax up anymore.  The upgrade was flooring tiles with a base color  gray.  Black, white and salmon dots splashed at random intervals so a crisscross pattern could be formed.

Tiling  was an exciting event.  We watched from the doors as the thick tar like stuff was put down to stick the tiles together.  The counter tops were covered with some kind of covering and metal edging  held this in place.  Mom bought paint in a salmon color and applied the umteenth coat of paint on all cabinets to bring out the highlights in the tiles.  WOW.   I know this is hard to imagine, but it really happened. The cabinet doors had so many layers of paint they wouldn’t stay shut, almost, but not quite there.  When the morning sun came through the windows, salmon door fronts glowed and made it necessary to squint at the brilliance.

Dad shaved in the kitchen every morning.  After milking, he would bring in the fresh milk for Mom to strain.  Mom would have a kettle of hot water ready for his shaving ritual.  The medicine cabinet hung over the sink holding the shaving stuff, tooth brushes and tooth powder, general first aid things and supported a mirror on the salmon colored door.    After shaving, Dad would rub a little aftershave on us as he walked past.   He always laughed and teased us about how good we smelled with Old Spice on our cheeks. We ducked and dived adding challenge to the game.

I have lots of  kitchen memories.  They’re usually good stories even when their about black, smoking things coming out of the oven.  Have you ever had a pressure cooker put vegetable soup on the ceiling?