(It seems to me that the RCBfA have been AWOL lately, so why not dress up this rant with a nice illustration?)
Fellow port-swillers who also dip in from time to time over at the Llamas will know that Robbo has found himself immersed in a project to re-do the countertops and cabinets in his kitchen, the old 70’s stuff finally having decided to start crumbling precipitously.
Fortunately, between the time I started this post and the time I am completing it, the headaches associated with such immersion – principally centering around a surprisingly violent disagreement over the choice of countertops – have been resolved. So instead of using this space to vent about any one person in particular, I can instead settle in for a good, old-fashioned, generalized rant. Here goes:
One of the most irritating irruptions of modern architecture to me is the advent of the “gourmet” (pronounced “gerrrr-may”) kitchen. No McMansion is au courant without one the size of a young basketball court. And anyone with a house older than ten or fifteen years who hasn’t dropped 100K to graft such an outsized growth on to it is, well, what can we say? NQOKD, my dear. And as soon as one even begins to consider even the most modest of upgrades, one suddenly realizes that the propoganda is everywhere: whole forests are felled for the purpose of selling John Public on the promise of turning his humble little hot-plate-and-percolator corner into a glittering center of haute cuisine and social prestige.
Feh. As you may suspect, I cannot stand the gerrr-may kitchen.
First of all, almost none of this has anything to do with the traditional function of the kitchen. It is my experience that for all the whizz-bang gadgets and high-tech gear put into them, all the multi-temp ovens, digital climate-controlled refrigerators, precision gas stove-tops and the like, to say nothing of the no-stick cooking surfaces and high-end, garish cabinetry and counter tops, most of the people who have them don’t actually…..ah….cook, in any meaningful sense of the word. When on their own, they usually seem to bring home something pre-prepped at Balducci’s that could be reheated using nothing more than direct sunlight and a large bowl lined with tin-foil. And when entertaining, they usually cater anyway.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, I am revolted by the modern custom of entertaining in the kitchen (which, of course, is the real justification behind shelling out so much jack for both the aforesaid gadgets and the infrastructre surrounding them). To me, hanging around the kitchen watching the hostess cook reheat oversee the catering of dinner is really no different than hanging around her bathroom watching her get dressed. For Heaven’s sake, whatever happened to privacy in preparation?
When I was a boy, we had an enlarged, framed, New Yorker cartoon hanging up in the kitchen. In it, a flustered woman is hard at work in her kitchen amidst the chaotic detritus of her preparations for a dinner party. Her husband is standing in the doorway along with their guests and saying, “Blanche is a gourmet cook. Aren’t you, dear?”
I always found that very funny. I still do. I strongly suspect that most owners of modern gerrr-may kitchens wouldn’t get it at all.
(I should mention here that the Mothe was, and still is as far as I’m concerned, the best chef I have ever known, which is why we had the cartoon. During our recent hols in Maine, I watched her make the most tasty blueberry pie from scratch in the very modest kitchen of her summah cottage. No yo-yo with a gajillion dollar gerrr-may kitchen could have come close to such a yummy dessert. But like me, she is also a firm believer that there is a reason for that swing door between the kitchen and the dining room.)
Now, some readers will say here that that such ignorance, and the trend in kitchen socialization as a whole, are functions of the modern emphasis on casualness. And there is something to that, of course. But in the specific case of the gerr-may kitchen, I think the root causes go beyond the mere hippyish revolt against formality. As I say, the main raison d’etre of the modern gerr-may kitchen is not, in the end, utlitarian. No, it serves strictly as a status symbol: You install your top-o’-da-line*** granite countertops and your Mongolian grill with the silent ventilation system not because it matters a wet slap to your actual culinary output, but instead because you want to show all your friends and acquaintances that you have the readies to blow on such installation. And being modern themselves, they instinctually know this, which is why they almost invariably congregate in the kitchen.
As I say, Feh.
*** Spot the quote. Hint: It has nothing to do with kitchens.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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August 25, 2009 at 3:43 am
New Gadgets | No One’s In The Kitchen With Robbo. Understand?
[…] Original post by The Port Stands At Your Elbow […]
August 25, 2009 at 5:41 am
Kathy
Quote’s from Tommy Boy. I think. It’s definitely Dan Akroyd, though.
August 25, 2009 at 5:43 am
Kathy
Oh, and I had a swing door at the old Cake Eater pad…everyone ignored it and came into the kitchen anyway.
August 25, 2009 at 6:35 am
Boy Named Sous
A word or two in defense of kickass well-equipped kitchens:
How would you feel if people told you you shouldn’t have a garden because all you’re really going to do is hire Jose to switch out this season’s annuals so that it looks good during your next cocktail party? Not everyone who has/wants a kitchen like that (and I may necer own one, but a guy can dream) does it to make a statement. Some of us… and this may come as some shock… ENJOY cooking. You garden. Some people have a woodshop and do carpentry, or restore cars, or collect stamp, or whatever. On nights when I’m not working unti 9:30 PM, guess what I do to relax? Yup…. I COOK. and like any guy, I drool over gadgets to support my hobby. I’ll admit, in your circles it’s probably more of a status thing, but among those of us for whom such kitchen luxuries are a dream, not a chore, it’s entirely different.
As for the trend towards entertaining in the kitchen, I for one like it — in its place. It depends on how casual or formal the occasion is, and how intimate the company is — family and friends who are like family are different from formal guests. I suppose it’s from my upbringing as the son of a smal town pastor, where potlucks were a staple of fellowship, and breaking bread together wasn’t a formality, but a way of life.
Given the whole tone of the rant, and particularly the New Yorker reference (heck, I was an adult before I’d HEARD of that magazine), I suspect it’s also a bit of a class thing. We white trash sort who don’t have New Yorker cartoons on our walls and summah cottages in Maine, well, we just do our best to make our guests at home, make them feel welcome and loved, and if that means letting them into our kitchens so we can visit while we cook, well, so be it.
August 25, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Diane
Gadgetry – Any true cook could prepare a feast over an open fire with a single cast iron pan.
But having all the gadgets to play with makes it much more fun.
Kitchen entertaining – I’m with Sous; it depends on the company. The gorgeous swinging door between my living and dining rooms is the dividing line if I’m entertaining new friends. Since I don’t have a better half to keep them happy while I’m in the kitchen, I take care to plan a menu that includes almost no last minute prep work, and can handle a bit of inattention.
Friends, however, are given free rein (and often a carving knife, gravy pan or pot to rinse). As Sous said, it’s fellowship – sharing not only the food, but the mess, fuss and heat of getting it all together. It’s a symbol of being open with the rest of our lives – being authentic in those deeper relationships. The friends who’ve dug around in my kitchen junk drawer are the ones I want to help me dig through some of the junk in my life.
August 25, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The Abbot
I’ve told my wife that our next home’s kitchen will rival Food Network’s Kitchen Stadium. But then, we can both cook.
I made a pretty mean blueberry pie a few weeks back. My pies usually impress people because of the crust. I go with the French 5-4 ratio(straight out of Julia Child) of flour to fat rather than the traditional American 3-2 ratio. Makes all the difference in the world.
August 25, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Robbo
BNS, I had thought of putting a disclaimer at the beginning of the post about you. You’re a ringer, after all, in the culinary field, so of course none of this would apply to you.
I certainly have no problem with people who buy all the whizz-bang stuff because they actually want to use it. My objection is to people who buy it not to assist in their cooking, but because some magazine tells them it will impress their friends. I would object equally to somebody who bought a Steinway grand piano but had no interest in playing it, or a library full of books they had absolutely no intention of ever cracking. As for having Jose switch out the annuals, fine, but don’t make him do the work and call yourself a gardener.
And of course the rules of hospitality vary depending on the circumstances, or at least used to. My gripe is that such variance has all but vanished, and seemingly every party – whether among close friends or near strangers – winds up centering in the kitchen these days.
Also, I am hardly taking a swipe at “white trash sorts” here. In fact, just the opposite: my beef is with mindless hyper-consumerism in the pursuit of social status. For better or worse, I live in a very expensive and image-driven corner of the country where keeping up with the Joneses is a varsity sport measured in six-figure increments, and it’s this sort of behavior at which I’m aiming. If you think I would walk into someone’s – anyone’s – house and start sneering in the face of a genuine effort on his or her part to make me feel welcomed and loved, well, I’m sorry to have given that impression.
August 25, 2009 at 2:51 pm
mothe
In Days of Yore, the idea of asking friends to dinner was to give them a Treat–as great a dinner as one could manage, a pretty table set–actually USING one’s best things, WHATEVER they were, not to impress but to honor guests for whom one did one’s best–and a host and hostess who strained man(and woman)fully to look as if it was all done by The Kitchen Fairy, so as not to make one’s guests painfully aware that one had been slaving away for a day and a half beforehand and was going to stay up half the night washing up afterwards. We did not go in for Guilt-Imposition. Guests were treated like visiting royalty, not handed a paring knife and steered straight to the salad sink. The idea, I repeat, was to delight others, to SHARE with friends the good things we were lucky (or industrious) enough to have accumulated, and to make it all look easy. Is that idea utterly obsolete? Is that idea considered Snobbish? How sad. In these broad-minded days I would have thought it was still possible to have non-Mainstream ways of doing things, even if they were of the Old School.
August 25, 2009 at 3:26 pm
jen
I want a gourmet kitchen because I love to cook. I want to entertain in said kitchen because otherwise I would not get to spend time with my guests.
As a guest, I love hanging in the kitchen with my hosts – same reason. I’m there to see them. If they’re in the kitchen the whole time I’m there, then my visit was mostly pointless.
August 25, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Kathy
To answer The Mater: I don’t believe the idea of treating one’s guests as if they were visiting royalty is at all obsolete. It’s more that the standard of what one does to treat visiting royalty has changed. My friends all work very hard at their full time jobs, and when I have a dinner party, I want to entertain them and treat them to a lovely dinner (although, I generally have a hard time making it look effortless, but that fault is mine, not theirs), yet they refuse to let me do so because they feel as if they need to pull their weight. I can only speak for myself, of course, but my friends wind up in the kitchen, not only because they feel the need to keep me company, but also to offer assistance. The few times I’ve actually managed to get things out on time, they still insist on finding something to do to help. If I try to shoo them out, to tell them to relax in the living room, they gently rebuff me. It would be bad manners in my book to press my point further, even if their presence in my tiny kitchen makes me claustrophobic.
My mother was like you: the door was shut, things were done, and she made it all look effortless. No one dared to enter her kitchen when she was preparing dinner for a party. The only time I ever remember handing over her kitchen was when my aunt died, and it was shocking. I tried to follow in her footsteps, but my guests weren’t having it. Standards have simply changed, and while I can only speak for myself, I think people are somewhat uncomfortable with the thought of being waited upon. They want to help. In the spirit of giving my guests what they want, I let them.
August 25, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Jordana
The one friend I have with a truly gourmet kitchen is definitely in the never cook, always ordering take-out variety. He is exactly what you describe above. Although I’m not sure his motives in putting in the fancy kitchen were so much to impress as simply thinking that that is what one does in his neighborhood.
My kitchen is neither top-of-the-line nor all the way at the bottom. I have some gadgets and other fancy things (and some things like a stand mixer that everyone says are essential) I have chosen not to bother with. And yet, what really is important is that what I have, I use. My family and friends are fed. Also, we chose with this house, in the midst of renovations to leave the kitchen separate from the rest of the house. People still congregate there at times, but generally there isn’t room for too many people in there and we eat in that currently ill-favored and eschewed room — the dining room — and we like it.
August 26, 2009 at 5:50 am
Boy Named Sous
Robbo,
No, *I* apologize for being so overly sensitive. Part of the problem is that we really do travel in very different circles, and I honestly can’t fathom a culture so completely driven by keeping up appearances.
August 26, 2009 at 6:18 am
Boy Named Sous
And Mothe,
I’m well familiar with the concept of doing ones best, and putitng out ones best, to delight guests — it’s a concept my mother knew and practised werll, and one I’ve put into practice myself on many occasions. No, that idea is NOT out-of-date or snobbish. But the impression that it is the only valid idea regarding hospitality, or at least the superior one, DOES seem snobbish. There is, after all, a time and a place for everything, and for every time I, or after marriage I and my wife, have put in the effort to delight our guests in such a way, we have also enjoyed many a time, both as hosts and guests, where the cooking was cummunal, and the delight was in each others’ company.
August 26, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Kitchen design
Thanks for sharing such a nice post.
Kitchen design
August 26, 2009 at 12:53 pm
The Maximum Leader
A propos of nothing… I recently read that Julia Child would frequently invite people over for dinner and then when they arrived ask them what they were cooking for her. She would then be happy to help them out in her kitchen prepare whatever they suggested. Talk about being put on the spot…
August 26, 2009 at 2:50 pm
ScurvyOaks
BNS, I’m happy for you to do it your way.
But I’m not sure you realize how aggressive the culture’s push for informality as normative has felt to those of us who like the old ways. Just sayin’.
August 26, 2009 at 3:13 pm
mothe
But, Boy, it is simply not “keeping up appearances!” Please believe that there is simply no pretense involved here. I ACTUALLY ENJOY doing things for other people, especially giving them Treats–no doubt the result of my oppressive, sexist upbringing.
Kathy, maybe like me, you find other people bopping around the kitchen when you are trying to finish dinner a great distraction. I can’t cook and carry on a conversation at the same time–definitely not Julia Child material here. (In fact I learned to cook well from watching her on TV–if such a clutz could do it, I reasoned, so can I.) Your friends are being a little rude, IMHO, by not following YOUR lead, in your own house. Have you noticed how some people tank over you, ruthlessly determined to show you The Better Way, pitying your cluelessness but fond of you nevertheless and only too willing to save you from yourself. Ironic, in an age where everyone preens him/herself on his/her “sensitivity.” Ooooh–sorry, should have said “her/his” at least once.
August 26, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Kathy
Have you noticed how some people tank over you, ruthlessly determined to show you The Better Way, pitying your cluelessness but fond of you nevertheless and only too willing to save you from yourself. Ironic, in an age where everyone preens him/herself on his/her “sensitivity.” Ooooh–sorry, should have said “her/his” at least once.
Actually, the only person who tries to tank over me with ruthless determination, to try and save me from myself, is my mother.
August 26, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Boy Named Sous
Scurvy,
Perhaps I don’t, since for me it IS normative. Or rather, normal — as normal as the old way. Perhaps there’s a generational aspect to it — or in my case, a non-generational aspect. I’m of an age that is considered too young to be a boomer, and too old to be an X’er. Thus I’ve spent my life standing athwart the gap between different generational modes of thought. Sometimes that leaves me feeling very split, at others, such as in this, I find myself equally comfortable with either way of doing things. But as a host I try to adjust which style and method I employ to fit the guest(s), and as a guest I try to show respect for the hosts or hostesses preferred way of doing things. I would never barge or insinuate my way into the kitchen of someone trying to keep things formal — that’s like shouting out how a trick is done in the middle of a magic show.
Mothe,
Perhaps not for you, and I would never presume to know you well enough to make that judgement, but Robbo himself has put forth that for many of the people in his society, it IS about appearances. As for the enjoyment you gain from giving people treats, it may shock you, but I can identify — I enjoy it too. I merely disagree with the assertion that the only way for it to truly be a treat is for it all to be produced from behind closed doors, with noone seeing me create it. There is a time and a place for that, and I am not dismissive of those who prefer it that way, I simply ask for acknowledgement, like that from ScurvyOaks, that it CAN be done another way and still be gracious.
August 26, 2009 at 8:12 pm
ScurvyOaks
Normal doesn’t trouble me. Normative gets up in my grill, as I understand you youngsters like to say.
August 27, 2009 at 2:15 am
Boy Named Sous
Up in my grill? Huh? And youngster? How old do you think I am?
August 27, 2009 at 3:02 pm
ScurvyOaks
Settle down, Beavis; I’m being silly. I’m 47, so I reckon I’m only a few years older than you are.
August 27, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Boy Named Sous
Less than a decade, that’s the closest I’ll cop to.
Do they really say “Up in my grill”?
August 27, 2009 at 8:58 pm
ScurvyOaks
Appallingly enough, I think some of them do.
August 27, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Boy Named Sous
I shudder to think….
August 30, 2009 at 2:04 am
Unsupervised
I dunno, folks.
We ALWAYS, when home, have our dinner parties in the kitchen, or outside (or a combination thereof) Of course, our kitchen and dining area are contiguous and continuous. No wall. Along with the living area. No wall there, either. Hard to shoehorn much into a 1300 sq ft house (including the converted 1-car garage that’s now the home to our book cases, computer, etc.).
I did, however, get thinking about why so many times the parties would gravitate to the kitchen. And then it struck me. That’s where half of the host/hostess set was (or both of them, oftentimes). Also, in winter, the kitchen was often the warmest room in the home. And moistest, which provided great relief from winter-heater-dry air.