I remember...
cold winter days and the whole family is packed in my aunt's kitchen. It is a combination of a kitchen and a living room. Boiling tea is steaming the windows and fried tomatoes smell so yummy!!! we gather around the table and enjoy the beautiful simplicity and coziness of our breakfast...
it is a stone outdoor kitchen surrounded by olive trees...in a quiet night you can even hear the sound of the waves. but usually it is quite vivacious, this space, with people cooking, chatting, drinking tea, laughing, exchanging stories and recipes...the kitchen of axladitsa is a marvelous playground and a learning space: it is an open invitation to co-create, participate and be with each other. this is where the community gathers to cook for each other with joy and creativity. to nourish our bodies and spirit!
Borl has a spacious and cool kitchen; it is a castle kitchen afterall. It once fed kings, knights, and even Parcifal. I remember cooking together with a bunch of people from all over the world, what delicious wonders we were able to create together, between peeling, frying, singing, baking, telling jokes... I always find great comfort, joy and solidarity in a kitchen community who cares for its food and who can cook, clean, do the dishes with lightness and playfulness...
kitchen is very symbolic. kitchen is perhaps the most important part of our homes. to understand the dynamics in a family, organization or a community, it is enough to take a look in their kitchen. our kitchen says a lot about our lives.
the form, the colors, the smells, the food, and
the people.
so who is in your kitchen?
you got a kitchen and there is no one there? that means you dont know your food, you dont touch it, you dont feel it, you dont enjoy a thousand odors and flavors that burst during cooking, you dont know the feel-good of nourishing your body with fresh and healthy food...while you are busy with everything else, you are missing a great joy of life.
that's a sad and lonely kitchen.
go back in there! start peeling, cutting, boiling, steaming, mixing, smelling, tasting! not only you will feed yourself, you will also explore your senses, your creativity, a dormant part of yourself...and dont stay there alone too long: invite friends, neighbors, family members to be there with you.
is it always your mum in the kitchen? and nobody else is allowed? she likes her order (control) and hygene? is it her property and you dont feel welcome there? none of the family members feel passion and responsibility about preparing food, as long as the mum is in the kitchen?
and perhaps, are you that mum? are your children and husband afraid to walk in to the kitchen not to disturb the order of your pots and pans? or not to get on your nerves?
I've got bad news: that's an opressed kitchen.
open the doors of your kitchen, invite your family and joy back in there! let go of control, it can be a lot of fun!
you live in a community and share a common kitchen. who is in the kitchen? Is it the same person or same few people cooking and cleaning all the time? are they all women? no man in the kitchen?
you might want to reconsider your communal living and the dynamics of equality between people. this is your typical patriarchical community.
diverse your kitchen! crowd your kitchen! invite more men into the kitchen! cook together, if we can cook together, we can be together, we can work together, we can live together!
and a final note: are you a man whose mum/wife/girlfriend made you believe that your only responsibility is to eat (consume) and not to bother about cooking and cleaning up (production)? you need to wake up mate! the way you treat food, kitchen and women is the way you treat the world: if you are in consumption but never in the production, you are ignorant and arrogant and we surely need less of those in the world.
I am personally tired of seeing kitchens slaving women and serving men.
It is time to reclaim the kitchen as the community space of inspiration and joy, solidarity and union, cooperation and co-creation!
 |
| free html hit counter code |
Posts
1 comment:
Christopher Alexander'ın A Pattern Language kitabindan:
The isolated kitchen, separate from the family and considered as an efficient but unpleasant factory for food is a hangover from the days of servants; and from the more recent days when women willingly took over the servants' role.
Therefore:
Make the kitchen bigger than usual, big enough to include the "family room" space, and place it near the center of the commons, not so far back in the house as an ordinary kitchen. Make it large enough to hold a good big table and chairs, some soft and some hard, with counters and stove and sink around the edge of the room; and make it a bright and comfortable room.
In traditional societies, where there were no servants and the members of a family took care of their own food, the isolated kitchen was virtually unknown. Even when cooking was entirely in the hands of women, as it very often was, the work of cooking was still thought of as a primal, communal function; and the "hearth," the place where food was made and eaten, was the heart of family life.
As soon as servants took over the function of cooking, in the palaces and manor houses of the rich, the kitchens naturally got separated from the dining halls. Then, in the middle class housing of the nineteenth century, where the use of servants became rather widespread, the pattern of the isolated kitchen also spread, and became an accepted part of any house. But when the servants disappeared, the kitchen was still left separate, because it was thought "genteel" and "nice" to eat in dining rooms away from any sight or smell of food. The isolated kitchen was still associated with those houses of the rich, where dining rooms like this were taken for granted.
But this separation, in a family, has put the woman in a very difficult position. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that it has helped to generate those circumstances which have made the woman's position in mid-twentieth century society unworkable and unacceptable. Very simply, the woman who accepted responsibility for making food agreed to isolate herself in the "kitchen" - and subtly then agreed to become a servant.
Post a Comment