Eighty-Eight Years in the Kitchen (First Appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle)

In 1918 my grandfather purchased a small property at the edge of a forest on the Peninsula.  The house, an old wood frame building from the 1880’s, burned in 1933.  One friend termed it a good fire. 

Even though I was a small child at the time of the fire, I remember the kitchen.  A large room, it had a free standing sink with one minute drain-board.  Food was kept cold in a wooden ice box whose drip pan had to be emptied frequently to prevent spillage.  A huge behemoth of a wood and coal stove occupied the other wall, and in the center of the room stood a round oak table where I recall being seated to eat a bowl of the oatmeal I detested.  Only when Aunt Margaret arranged red, white, and blue crepe paper streamers around my plate and placed the fancy sugar spoon in my hand would I eat my breakfast.  This probably only happened once, but children do not forget special kindnesses.

After the fire our elders built the house we still enjoy today.  The kitchen was a marvel where raised tiled platforms held a modern electric stove from which the legs were removed and a refrigerator which also had been shorn of its appendages.  This was supposed to be the latest thing in 1934. 

Over the years, that kitchen provided sustenance for countless family meals and gatherings of friends.  Nine family members lived in the house during the summer as well as houseguests, as we children took turns inviting friends from San Francisco.  At breakfast-time Grandmother’s kind-hearted housekeeper kept popping out from the kitchen with platters of toast and eggs.  Her daily question:  “Is anyone filled up yet?”

 At Sunday dinners in years past, the dinner count started at twelve and went up from there as city friends dropped in.  During the summer Grandmother, our chief, had a lot to say about meal planning, but Mother occasionally was permitted an opinion.  After a shopping expedition to the local market where she handed her list to a clerk, Mother returned with provisions that filled the counters.  When Grandmother asked why she had only bought four or five loaves of bread, I remember Mother’s reply. “I would have been ashamed.”

During college years, social and academic groups would occasionally hold parties and meetings at our house, and as always, the kitchen had a workout.  At a party for one living group, the house cook came along to prepare breakfast for the gang.  She seemed to have great difficulty getting the pans of scrambled eggs off and on the stove.  She had apparently discovered the family liquor supply and had a party of her own.

My brother and his San Francisco high school friends  have had a monthly poker game at our country house for over fifty years.  This works well, because other family members only come on weekends.  About ten years ago two of the players, both gourmet cooks, proposed preparing the dinner in our kitchen instead of going to a restaurant.  The guys were delighted and loved the marvelous food the two concocted.  We ladies were not happy to arrive on a Saturday with our weekend provisions and find no room in the refrigerator now stuffed with massive amounts of leftovers.  After a few years the men finally understood that we really wanted the kitchen for ourselves.  The two wives of the cooks were also delighted not to have their own kitchens destroyed with the pre-preparations.

A few years ago the old kitchen began to show its age as the floor curled up and the ceiling sagged.  We knew it was probably past time to have it redone and summoned a contractor.  He performed wonders, and the wide counters gave the three of us ladies plenty of space to prepare our assigned parts of the family dinner.

The Sunday dinner tradition continues, but except for holidays, we now have only five or six regulars.  Our  children come with their children whenever they can, and that brings a special joy.  The youngest occupies her great-uncle’s highchair.

We love the remodeled kitchen, and it seems to provide the traditional level of hospitality.  The new appliances, counters, and floors improve greatly upon the old, but we cannot forget that over the past eighty-eight years, all three kitchens have been the center of fun, the heart of our home.