An Invitation for You

Why My Kitchen Is One of My Favorite Places to Be and Why I'd Love for You to Join Me Here

Welcome to my kitchen!

Pull up a stool, friend.

You can grab the creaky, metal one beside the pocked, stained woodtop of our kitchen island. The consecutive cut marks in the middle are a gift from our youngest when she first learned to cut her apples with a “real” knife. And the circular brandings around the edges are from everyone learning the purpose of a hot pad. With six children in our house, nothing stays pristine for long. Which means you can put your warm mug of pumpkin latte or the sweating glass of your chocolate almond smoothie right on the table, no need for a coaster. That’s the good part about imperfection; it means we can put our defenses away.

Or maybe sitting at the island is too informal for you. We’ve only just met, perhaps, and you’d like to keep your distance for a while, at least till things feel a little more comfortable. No worries. Lean back against the counter, maybe over by the sink, next to the window that looks out over the Japanese maple. That’s a good place to stay inconspicuous, to listen from the sidelines till you’re ready to jump into the conversations.

Because that’s one of the many things that “kitchen” represents in our house: community. I mean, there’s food, of course. Yes, we always love to gather around the “this-just-came-out-of-the-oven-so-be-careful” pans of mapled brussels sprouts, piles of rainbowed crudite beside bowls of ranch, and chocolate zucchini muffins still warm in their tins. Eating here embodies the definition of “family-style” (and sometimes even “caveman-style”), and we pretty much discarded the “double-dipping rule” 20 years ago.

But there’s more than food and feasting in my kitchen. There’s also conversation. Lots of it. We talk about the everyday stuff of life—the books we’re reading, the show we watched last night, our beloved fox red Labrador, Winifred Beatrice—but we also talk about the hard stuff, too. Like the latest heartbreaking headline or the rough day at school or our frustrations with one of the other seven people in this house whom we are trying our very darnedest to live with. Sometimes there’s no food in sight, just smiles and wild gesticulations to accompany our joy. Or hunched shoulders and tight fists to illustrate our anger, frustration, or “fill-in-the-blank.”

But there is always one thing present in my kitchen: lots and lots of words.

So welcome to the conversation via the community that is my kitchen. Sometimes you’ll walk in and find a new recipe or a link to an article I loved or an invitation to a new endeavor I’m embarking on (perhaps a cookbook club or running a marathon—who knows what we’ll get up to.) A lot of times I’ll wax poetic about the whole-food, plant-based journey I’ve been on for the past 7 years; I do love talking about plants and the amazing things they’ve done for my body and soul. And sometimes food won’t be mentioned anywhere from the title to the last word because other things will feel more important to talk about. I guess it’s kind of unpredictable. Or you could call it whimsical. Yep, I like the sound of that better.

Welcome to Mai Time in the Kitchen. The kettle’s on so let’s get started.