Tuesday Night~~
Good things happen in my kitchens..and each of my kitchens have oddly looked the same. I cannot escape my style, it has shadowed me for years. Always an apron hanging on a hook,a candle on the counter, a teapot or two or ten, on display. Artwork from loved ones on the refigerator, special magnets holding them. Wooden bowl full of onions and garlic and potatoes, that i bought at eighteen, in my first little apartment, from the dusty bottom shelf of an antique store. ( i always get on my knees and explore the bottom shelf..no one else does)
These are the backdrops to my life dramas...It is in kitchens that i have danced with lovers, it is in kitchens that i have gripped a coffee cup and cried, it is in kitchens that i have scrubbed the floor, furiously, as i worked out anger. It is in kitchens that i have kissed the most, from the boo-boo knees of my babies, to languid, heated, i-want-you rendevouz, to happily coupled embraces.
I have sung off key, alone, to Italian operas, wielding my wooden spoon dramaticly,creating feasts, and sadly contemplated empty cupboards, trying to stretch half a box of elbow macaroni and a can of tuna fish.
Most of all, my kitchen is my security blanket. I can surround myself with safety and comfort, anywhere, as long as i can feed someone. I have cooked on campfires and in fancy houses, i have cooked with nothing more then a one burner stove and on the best agas. I am not the best cook...i can't reel off a bechamel sauce by heart, nor can i cook for a crowd without a beating heart..but, i CAN silence a table, with nothing said more then busy forks and spoons, and have people tell me later"would you make that thing again, you know, that one you made with the noodles and green stuff" That makes me happy....that need to fill someone, to fill them to the top, to make them laugh, to serve, to cherish them...faults, foibles, and all...
I guess i am over the top with this post...i mean, people get by with a can of beans...and here i sit, writing about cooking...oh well, i always can fall back on "it's my blog, and i can write what i want to"..kinda like one of my favorite oldies, "it's my party, and i can cry if i want to"...
On a very different note...the special gift i gave J for his birthday? A mandolin.
Grandpa Quintavalle came to america in 1907, at 14, with only his mandolin and his dreams. He played on street corners in Brooklyn to make his way...a self taught musican. His great grandson, J, is the same self taught musican. Grandpa guides him, i know. More, later....PS...this is one post i refuse to preview...let it be written, before i chicken out on the intimacy of it all....later.