Kitchens Aren’t Real

The Essentials Are More Bare Than You Might Think

Words by: Lauren Blaser Photos by: Jamie Kim, Maia Rosenbaum, Eileen Shelton and Ngan Tran

“What’s in a name? If we call a ‘kitchen’ by any other name, would it still serve its same culinary purpose? Arguably, the answer is yes.”

The first and only time I used Excel this summer was to make a spreadsheet titled “Apartment Accessories!” Listed in the left column were all of the items that my roommates and I deemed non-negotiable for the kitchen. We each typed our name next to whatever we owned, or were willing to buy. Muffin tins. Tea kettle. Chip clips. It was the first form of bonding that we experienced: arranging a kitchen. Well, preparing for our kitchen. Or, were we creating a kitchen? The way a person chooses to fill this space says a lot about them—their lifestyle, their food preferences, their socioeconomic status. Kitchens speak volumes about a person’s life, but they are mere skeletons containing the soul of human consumption, the bare necessities. Merriam-Webster defines a kitchen as “a place (such as a room) with cooking facilities.” The Cambridge English Dictionary tacks on an element of cleaning, defining the space as “a room where food is kept, prepared, and cooked and where the dishes are washed.” Cooking can be complicated, but only if you want it to be. A source of heat is one of the few true necessities in a kitchen. Even a lowly underclassman college dorm, infamous for its “kitchenette,” still has a microwave, offering the chance to reheat snacks and drinks. Truthfully, a heat source could be pared down to its most raw state, fire itself, and offer the same results. Kitchens also require a spot for food to be kept, but the storage situation depends on a number of factors. In colonial America, families hung pots and pans from ceiling rafters. In the Food and Wine test kitchen, circa 2020, expert-level chefs keep every style and slight variation of pot and pan carefully arranged in spacious drawers and cabinets.

Not all kitchens are created equal. In a quirky design feature—or flaw—on the part of our architect, my bedroom doors open directly into the kitchen. If I plugged a rice cooker into the wall of my bedroom and steamed a bag of Jasmine grains on my desk, would that not technically make my bedroom an extended cooking space? One of the first memes I saw reads When the teacher thinks you’re doing work but you’re actually making pancakes. Underneath is a grainy photo of a girl hiding an electric griddle behind her binder. A late breakfast prepared on a desk: here, a classroom becomes a kitchen. A car on a road trip performs similarly. Food is stored and later distributed among the passengers, after minimal preparation is completed from the seat. The place where food is made contributes to the aesthetic appeal of the process, but at the end of the day, these are mere walls surrounding the magic that happens within. Walls, quite honestly, aren’t even necessary. Over 2.4 million TikTok users follow menwiththepot, whose feed (pun intended) consists of cooking videos staged entirely outdoors, over a fire. Their tools aren’t extensive—the most common appear to be a cartoonish, curved knife, a cutting board, and a steel pot or two. The creations they throw together in a campfire-style setting would be impressive in a professional kitchen. Focaccia bread. Spit-fired meats. Hand-rolled ravioli. My roommates and I haven’t prepared a meal to hold a candle to their decadent plates, and I doubt we will before the year is up. Still, I love our kitchen, and these two men seem to love theirs. Focusing too deeply on the “room” itself would be like buying show tickets based on the set. It might be ornate, or it might be a bit run-down, but the events that happen there are what matter most. When I consider the way my life will proceed, future kitchens often play a central role in the montage. A sweet space with a balcony looking over a European city. A cozy one that only allows single-file movement. One day, a room large enough to host chaotic family gatherings. It’s not the kitchens I yearn for, though. It’s the good fortune to be able to spend time in France, and rent a small apartment with a charming tiled kitchen. It’s having a significant other to squeeze past, teasing “Behind!” as I swiftly maneuver a hot pan from table to stove in our galley kitchen. Sipping coffee and leaning against a granite island with my sister, getting nostalgic about time passing. I actually might have watched that last scene in a Hallmark movie, instead of dreaming it up myself. After I arrived in Brighton with my three roommates, we carried cardboard boxes of plates and pots and cutting boards to our designated kitchen, painted a dark shade of pastel green. In the weeks that passed since that late-August afternoon, what began as the eclectic space I happened to be sleeping next to has become my favorite spot in the house. Not because of the random accessories we happen to have; the ancient dutch oven I brought, or the cabinets which tower so high that our shortest roommate needs a stool to access them. All of the best moments just happen to occur there. What’s in a name? If we call a kitchen by any other name, would it still serve its same culinary purpose? Arguably, the answer is yes. Humans nourish themselves daily, and in order to do so they must squeeze every last drop out of the whichever spaces they choose to dedicate to food.