If, when reading one of my books, you come across a character with cluttered kitchen countertops, you’re safe in assuming that this person is flailing in every aspect of her life. For instance, in this excerpt from my Fran Furlow sleuth series, Fran’s nemesis, Wendy, has gone missing. Check out what Wendy’s thirteen-year-old babysitter has to say:
“Did she say who she was meeting?” I ask Billy.
“A client, that’s all.”
“How was her mood—excited, nervous, maybe impatient?”
“Well, to be honest, she always seems weird to me.”
“In what way?”
“She’s so scattered.” He gives a confounded shrug. “I mean, she calls herself a life coach, but piles of overdue bills and notifications are all over the place, and you’d think someone who tells other people how to get organized would know to put mayonnaise and milk back in the refrigerator.”
A boy after my own heart. I’m forced to bite my tongue to stop from joining him in a rant.
Not always, but often, my fictional opinions reflect my actual views. And my belief is that a messy space reflects a messy life.
So why did I allow a drawer in my kitchen to become so packed with random disorderly sticky stuff that its existence brings disgrace to our household and renders my personal credo meaningless?
It’s my habit when having guests to give them my kitchen. Some women are protective of their refrigerator and oven, pots and bowls; but the kitchen isn’t where my heart is, so I’m liberal in that area. So, when the after-wedding guests visited us for a few days, I was happy to turn the cooking over to the culinarily adventurous millennials. But when one of them—dark curly hair, constant smile—started toward that drawer, I leapt across the room in full panic, arms stretched out in an effort to stop her motion while emitting a horrified, “NOOO!”
Poor girl. I made her jump
“Not that one,” I told her. “That’s my drawer of shame.”
Her look told me she thought I was crazy. And to prove it, she bent over, opened the drawer, and immediately recoiled in shocked revulsion. The rest of the kitchen is so neat, so organized! What happened here?
It started out as a cookbook drawer, but I’m not gifted or patient when it comes to reading instructions and combining ingredients, so the cookbooks taunted me. Perhaps the gradual dropping-in of all the extraneous items was a subconscious attempt to cover them up. Nevertheless, the cookbooks were slowly buried by plastic forks, birthday candles, plastic plates, baskets, flexible and inflexible kabob skewers, toothpicks, a strainer, napkins, two broken cork screws, three sleeves of disposable cups, and extra oven mitts; also, a baggie with the peeled-off labels of wines we enjoyed; and a metal basket with a handle that’s an accessory to a never-used appliance that went to Goodwill three years ago.
So, during this soul-sapping period of isolation, cleaning out that stupid drawer is a task I decide to take on. While on television the governor of New York endlessly laments his state’s plight, I pull everything from the drawer, lay the items out on the counter, spray the interior with cleaner, and scrub the whole splotchy storage area.
How’d I end up with so many throw-away dishes, cups, and forks? Was I at some point obsessively fearful of not having enough plastic tableware? Because I don’t want to think about or see this nonsensical collection, I climb a ladder and poke all of it on a shelf so high and so far back that it’s not visible from the floor. I find appropriate spaces and niches for a few other things, too, but most of it goes in the trash.
The cookbooks. Did you know that every time you order steak or seafood online, it arrives with an instruction booklet? We have, over the last five years, accumulated twenty of these advisory pamphlets, all of which we tossed into the drawer. Now, into the trash they go.
Considering that I’m not an avid cook, it’s inexplicable that there are at least fifty loose copies of recipes printed from websites. Also, recipes on lined paper penned by so many friends who were a part of my life for a while, women who did love to cook and, when I praised their efforts, painstakingly and without request from me, took the time to write the ingredients and directions out by hand.
Gathering recipes and selling cookbooks was a fundraising fad for a while, and I always bought them to support whatever cause—two from Cairo, others from the American Women’s Club of The Hague, the American School in Scotland, the Beaconsfield Women’s Guild, and the Home Counties Chapter of the RSPCA. Halfheartedly involved in these groups, I was often asked to contribute recipes, at which point I unabashedly copied others’ recipes from other books to donate as my own. One of the books, a wedding gift that’s travelled from country to country for over thirty years, holds only blank pages, offering me the pleasure of documenting my own gastronomic experiences and favorite recipes. The pages are still blank.
Oh, but here, the biggest treasure, fallen to the bottom, up to this point forgotten and covered with unwanted paraphernalia—a beautiful tome compiled and edited by Anthony Bordain. Seeing it, I recall receiving it as a gift, and what a delight it was to receive this physical and inspirational manifestation of a man I admired—right here in my kitchen, his food wisdom available to my flicking fingertips. And happily, the gladness I felt in getting it as a gift the first time revisits, and I am once again uplifted. As I said, a treasure. Alas, I have forgotten who and when. But I can promise this—with this second gifting it will remain on top, handy and appreciated. No more letting it get covered with crap. If you’re the one who gave it to me, please let me know. I’d love to say thanks again. So, a lesson learned. Don’t bury valuable stuff beneath mundane stuff.
Here it is. Shameful.
My kitchen is this shiny and organized any day, any time, likely because I spend so little time in it.
The Joy of Cooking, which David possessed before I came along, has ancient greasy food gunk all over it.
I can’t look at this cover without humming a happy tune.
Written in my mother’s hand, the out-of-order instructions are a clear indication of how muddled she always was. She pulled it from an issue of Redbook in the 60’s. It’s absolutely delicious and I was asked for the recipe every time I made it, and my response was always, “It’s the only cake I know how to make, and I’ll happily give it to you as soon as we’re transferred to another country.” Hah. That never happened—but here it is for anyone who wants it. What the instructions don’t say is that it should rest in the refrigerator for a couple of days before eating.
This brought back memories of going to a Thai cooking class in Bangkok with cousin, Georgia, and sister, Resa. That was one good time!
This is what happens when you remember you need plastic forks while you’re at Costco.
All done, never to be messy again.
