A Kitchen Wears Many Hats
Suzanne Pollak
Natalie Wood by Martha Holmes, 1944.
In quarantine time the kitchen will serve as dining room, office, playroom, classroom, homework station, living room, winery, even penal colony. It’s a room that is integral to family life no matter the size of the family, one to a dozen.
Exploit all its advantages. First off:
Order in the Kitchen!
Kitchens crave order. Having multiple people hanging out in the house day and night is a recipe for maximum mess and stress. Coats, backpacks, mail, needs to be put away. After classwork time the countertops need to be cleared to start the nightly dinner. And after dinner — we all know that dirty dishes do not improve with age, so get them done! The silver lining is NOW is the perfect time to reboot the responsibilities of all residents, from tiny to teetering on how to properly wash the dishes, fill and empty the dishwasher, sweep a kitchen floor and mop one too. Keeping the kitchen tidy is vital for mental stability.
Kitchen Therapy (Tackling the Frustration of Focusing)
Your mind may may be all over the place, way worse than usual. It’s hard not to spin our wheels. One way to tame the wildness of the brain is to focus on skills. Bake biscuits, or a pie. These foods, while not slimming, make anyone everywhere feel better. The smell of a baking project perfumes a house and makes inhabitants feel comfortable and loved. And the recipes require attention.
Another way of occupying your time is by organizing one pantry at a time, or even your cookbook shelf…
Kitchen Gym
Install an iron bar from one short wall to another, or in a corner near the ceiling. Use the bar to do pull ups. Even one, a half one, a fourth of one, will make you strong. And the time commitment? Two seconds. Unless you are superman and can do multiple.