Ms Chef in Seattle

That gorgeous garden of bamboo and palm brushes right up to the wide kitchen window in my new home. It’s the biggest kitchen with the most counter, cabinet and floor space I’ve ever had to myself, and lots of decisions. If you’ve ever had three-quarters of your kitchen needs in boxes in another room because the kitchen is too small for the cook/baker/chef in the home, had to pull a 13″ x 9″ baking dish out of a box for use and put it back in the same box later, then you moved to a kitchen wherein those boxes could be emptied into cupboards and drawers, well, that is what I’ve been doing. Packing, moving, unpacking, stacking, deciding, putting away, recycling, making friends with cat which has lived here, inside and out, since he was a kitten. (My daughter said he stays, that she will be responsible. He is a marvelous cat.)

None of it would have been possible without the massive aid of my daughter, who was already working long hours, then helping with everything that needed doing to get me out of the old and into the new, including the choice of residence. (More about some synchronicities another time.) She instructed the (first) movers to put all the boxes into the dining room, so it looked like they had backed the truck to the room’s edge and pushed the boxes out to fill it from floor to ceiling. She then shifted and sorted the boxes herself to areas where they could could be unpacked, temporarily stored for subsequent distribution and then unpacked or stored more permanently. The young lady knows organization and logistics, the big picture, as well as knowing the signs of maternal frustration all the while noting that progress is being made.

Today, thanks to both my daughter and cupboard skills which I learned in junior high in Home Ec 101, the kitchen is mostly done and I’m looking forward to making the acquaintance of the oven. So far, it’s been one pan on the stove. Gas stove, too, whoopee! Next batch of caramels on a gas burner? Yes.

I will invite my lovely neighbor who lived here once upon a time, works full-time at a challenging job, has two small children yet still found time to help me including numerous trips taking boxes to the Goodwill, to show me the secrets of the oven. Twenty-five minutes later, I will send her off with a dozen of my warm Snicks with Kisses, ready to bake as soon as the oven heats to 350 degrees.

I met my brilliant gardening neighbors the first days of the month when I was outside dealing with the huge mess left on the curb by the former tenants. She gave me the beautiful forsythia bouquet, which I placed in a vase with rocks in the base, on the other kitchen window, over the sink. Isn’t it pretty?

And this is the garden area outside my new living room. The camelia petals were starting to fall, some landed on an old wooden ladder leaning against a barrier fence.

It’s so quiet in here, so peaceful, so safe, so lovely outside those windows, so much wall space for paintings, high ceilings for small soirees, and a big kitchen with big windows waiting to serve kitchen needs unmet for a long time. Happy New Year to me! The move is done. The first shop is next.