a peek into my kitchen…

where I get to cook

When I have someone to do the dishes for me, I remember again how much I love it. Cooking. Baking. Combining ingredients, tasting, testing, to make something satisfying and filling. Something to warm the soul and the stomach. Something that speaks love to my family and any guests. Something that tastes like home.

I’ve been baking cookies for as long as I can remember. But I don’t know when I actually fell in love with the process of cooking, non-measuring, and tasting (every good cook taste tests, right?). Aunt Margie taught me how to make bread. And Mom taught me how to read a recipe—then quickly learned that I would not be confined to such ideas as actual measurements.

When I was almost 12, my little sister was born. With Mom on bed rest, I naturally took over most of the cooking for the family. Mom wasn’t there to make me follow the recipe, and I began to experiment and create my own unique combinations. There were plenty of flops (not to mention the times I misread the recipe and added, say, baking soda in place of powder to things like pancakes…). But I developed some favorites, as well—like my garlic olive bread twist.

By the time I was falling in love with my husband, I already knew that “the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.” Naturally, I made sure to have plenty of caramel rolls on hand whenever he was visiting, and I tried to show some efficiency and accomplishment in the kitchen in case he was watching. Just don’t ask Marlys about the rolls I burnt that night he told me he loved me…

Marrying a farmer stretched my cooking horizons in more ways than just eating naturally and in season. His little sister might have hated the idea of learning to cook back in 2001, but by the time we got married, she was what I’d classify as a gourmet. I didn’t want the contrast of going from her cooking to mine to be too shocking for my beloved food connoisseur. So I kept trying and experimenting and browsing through my sister-in-law’s Gourmet magazine when it was lying around. And I learned through trial and error, kind of like taste testing recipes as I cooked them.

The FlyLady says to get dressed to your lace-up shoes when you start your day.

Others like to step into their pumps to stop the frumps.

Me?

I’d be a barefoot-in-the-kitchen kind of girl—except for our concrete floor.

I’d be a wear-my-comfy-foot-shaped-Keens-for-housework-each-day kind of girl—except that I like to be able to easily slip into an outside pair of shoes to run to the herb garden or the freezer or the shed.

I’d be a wear-my-Romeo-shoes-around-the-house-so-I-can-easily-slip-in-and-out-of-them kind of girl—except that my heels blister way too easily.

So I’m a Birkenstock kind of girl.

And I get dressed to my apron when I am ready to tackle my housework.

How about you? What’s your dressed-and-ready-to-face-the-day attire? What’s the costume that keeps you awake and on task?