Dancing in the Kitchen....

Oh, the kitchen. The Mystery School of schools. The magnetic pull of its domain. No matter how large of a home I inhabited, any family or friends would find themselves drawn to it like no other room in the house.

Oh, the refrigerator. Shelves of ingredients that to the uninspired or dispassionate cook could seem meaningless, becomes for me a university of choices from which to choose all manner of supposed haphazard ingredients into concocting an un-reciped meal to rival the well-schooled chefs of the world.

Oh,the left-overs. Some of the best unforseen ingredients that could be thrown in to make something possibly mundane, now transformed in its ability to add what would not normally be added, and tastes not traditionally thought could be mixed.

Oh, the pantry. A Narnia-like cupboard of supposed innocuous cans and boxes that seem to be relegated to just the necessities devoid of any magic. When scanned with the eyes of the ordinary looking to become a part of the extraordinary,they can be the mainstay or the bedrock of unimagined culinary delights.

Periodically, I would be cooking away and call the children into the kitchen. While something was simmering or baking, I would shout out: "Dancing in the kitchen!" Justin, Taylor and I would all break into the most glorious of free-dance moves. Oh, the honoring of the varied ingredients making friends with each other, celebrating the variety of what they each contributed. I would be calling out: "Let them mix and mingle! Let them celebrate the joy of their unique offerings!" If more than the children and myself were home for this 'incantation', to the virgin-eyed visitor, this type of ritual could have been tantamount to a witch's cauldron's chant of 'bubble bubble toil and trouble....' To the children and any dinner guests (of which had previously eaten the 'brew' of my former dinners) this was the call to arms, the quasi-calm before the storm of devouring whatever found its way to their possibly tulip garnished, bougainvillaea strewn and decorated plates.

Jitterbugging, rock n' rolling, and waltzing maneuvers to encourage the alchemy of the potion of delights. The sacredness of the willy-nilly mixing of heretofore unheard of combinations of flavors. The reckless abandon of trusting the Muses of Mayhem-Cuisine to do their magic. The unabashed regaling of praises to the Goddesses and Ancestors of the Butter King, the Princes of Pasta, the Courtesans of Creme.

Pushing back the chairs from the table, sated and full bellied we freely sigh or groan at the fullness of it all...the communion of dinner saints, the grateful devourers of Mother Nature's bounty; the afterglow of Dancing in the Kitchen.

Gracie Garp