Dream Kitchen

My hand touches the heavy steel bar and pulls firmly, expecting resistance. Instead, my efforts are met with a smooth gliding motion what silently opens out and down – my new oven – at least for the moment until two realizations push their way into my brain. First, the price tag is prohibitive. Second, people are beginning to stare at this crazy woman caressing an appliance in the middle of the design store. I sigh away, casting my eyes down and slinking past the sales associate whose mocking gaze says she knows I’m an amateur dreaming of stardom.

My dream kitchen has all the coolest appliances, the hottest finishes, and the hippest colors, of course. It also changes every time I stroll through a catalog or dissect a Food Network set. Only one constant remains in my dream kitchen: love. Kitchen love comes in many forms – the macaroni and cheese that warms a child’s smile after school, the aroma of cloves, cinnamon, ginger and yeast that embraces a family on Christmas morning, the echoing laughter of teenagers tumbling over one another on the way to the fridge, the trailing steam that rises from an antique porcelain cup brimming with chai.

Kitchens really are the heart of the home, the place where everyone’s life intersects. They are made grand not by what they are stocked with, but by what happens there. Life’s frustrations and joys are played out across a million meat loaves and birthday cakes. Thus my dream kitchen – which is redesigned almost hourly in the ongoing wishfulness of my head – isn’t really about that exorbitantly priced double oven in stainless steel and polished eggplant as much as the glittering gems of the moments and memories that make a home.