Everyone who know me knows that being in the kitchen is not my favorite place to be. If given a choice, I’d rather be eating the food than making it. π
Growing up with my family, the kitchen was a generally happy place. I would sit on a bar stool and chat with my mom or dad as they made dinner or baked something. Despite my father’s best efforts to get me to help him, I worked hard to find ways to avoid helping. Even his ultimatums to force me to make dinners didn’t last since it was such a drama for me. I told him early on that I would marry someone who can cook so that I did not have to.
Baking was another story. I didn’t mind that so much, for some reason. Still, I did not do it that often. Plus, most of the time, my mom would make the dough of cookies and I merely had to put them in or take them out of the oven. π
It wasn’t until I moved to Abu Dhabi and really lived on my own for the first time in my adult life that I came to understand the probable reason for why I had such an issue with the kitchen.
My realization came with panic attacks every time I was in my ‘small’ kitchen. I mean, I had been in small kitchens before with our tiny New York and Japan apartments. However, I had never really been alone in them.
After some professional help and my own analysis, it dawned on me that remnants of trauma from my second adoptive family was triggered by being in the kitchen.
The kitchen was the place where I would stand in the corner for what seemed like hours (to a 5-year-oldβs mind) on my own contemplating what exactly I had done wrong. When I couldnβt piece it together, I developed the art of emptying the mind. Who knew then that today I would call it meditation π§π½ββοΈ!
The kitchen was the place where I would get yelled out no matter what I did. The wooden spoons from the kitchen were used to spank me. My first mental breakdown and screaming match at my adoptive mother was in a kitchen.
Even though it is just a room in the house and I do not always associate it with these negative memories, being alone in a kitchen is generally NOT my idea of fun. Over the years, I have developed many happy memories in my kitchens, so it’s not all bad. π
Still, these days, I prefer open kitchens rather than rooms where the lingering memories can grow like mold in the walls unnoticed until a breakdown occurs. Most importantly, I am more than content to let anyone and everyone else be in the kitchen (open or not) if it means that I don’t have to be! π
In fact, despite the social phenomenon of people always somehow ending up gathering in the kitchen at parties, I tend to avoid it as much as possible.
However, there are occasions when I feel an urge to step into the kitchen to bake or make meals. Recently, this has been happening more often (though summer has started so it might lessen again!).
First bread loaf 
Apple Day – pie and sauce 
Tortillas from scratch 
Second bread loaf
These are just a few pics of kitchen adventures some months back!
Age is a funny thing as I’m finding I can start to let go of the traumas of the past and enjoy the world of edible creations. Still, if you want to feed me without me having to be in the kitchen, I will never prevent you from doing so!
~T π
