FOUNDER’S LETTER

founder’s page

APRIL 2022 / DONNA MOFFLY

“My six-foot-five brother Mike said if he ever had to live in our house, the first thing he’d do would be to nuke the nook.” OF HOUSES AND SPECIAL SPOTS

Everybody has one—a favorite place in the house. In the winter Jack’s was the long low bench in the living room by the fireplace, drink in hand, where he could sit for hours watching the flames dance. For you, it might be the big cushy armchair in the den, the sunny window seat in the master bedroom or even the old wooden workbench in the basement with its lineup of hammers and pliers. A place where people won’t have to look too far to find you.

Mine is the little arched nook in our kitchen. It came with the house and has been there since World War II. When we bought our Riverside home in 1963, the nook was painted an obnoxious purply-blue. Now it’s yellow with green ivy paper on the back wall and trimming the edge. Several times over the years, Jack and I removed the table and sat cross-legged on the floor between the two benches with staple guns to replace their vinyl covers.

It used to seat four, and still does if they are mini people. Even five, if one’s a lap-sitter. But the fourth place is now taken up by a television set. My six-foot-five brother Mike said if he ever had to live in our house, the first thing he’d do would be to nuke the nook.

I’ll never nuke the nook. It holds too many memories. Too much has gone on there.

On the edge of this table is where Jack used to perch our little red-headed son to give him haircuts back in the sixties. (It was naturally wavy and very forgiving.) And where Jonathan’s three-year-old playgroup busily shelled peas— an early lesson in productivity and nutrition. If they rolled off the table onto the floor, who cared? We just swept them up, washed them off, cooked them and ate them. It was also where the kids learned how to play Go Fish.

Later, daughter Audrey and her high-school friends would wait until we were out of the house then settle into the nook for a game of Quarters. Something about trying to flip a quarter into a glass filled with a couple inches of beer. If you’re unsuccessful, you have to drink the beer; and if you’re successful, your friends have to drink it.

Still later, Audrey came home from Maryland Institute for the weekend and surprised us with a candlelit gourmet dinnerfor-two in the nook. She wanted to soften us up for the news that she had picked up a stray cat on the streets of Baltimore, and it was currently under wraps upstairs in her bedroom. (She is still a gourmet cook and still rescuing animals.)

Our golden retriever Charlie used to take refuge under the benches in the nook when he was in trouble—with nose on paws and soulful eyes peering out at us.

This has always been a good place for

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We can’t wait to see your view of Greenwich! “Our golden retriever Charlie used to take refuge under the benches in the nook when he was in trouble.”

serious conversation over a cup of tea—where I once gave a friend a heads-up about how her fiancé had abused his first wife. (She married him anyway, and he was wonderful to her.) And—a real dandy—where another friend and I tried to figure out how to tell a neighbor that their teen was not only into drugs, but that the kid was selling them at school, where he was known as “the chemist.” (He would shape up and became very successful in life.)

This is where houseguests enjoyed their morning coffee, watching us flip pancakes. Where Jack and I would polish off a soothing bowl of soup after a cocktail party. Where our young grandchildren headed first when they walked in the kitchen door. They’d squeeze into the nook to color Easter eggs or, as I fussed over Christmas Eve dinner, to decorate cookies made from Betty Burke’s special recipe, just like their parents used to do. Now they sit in the nook with their iPads playing hilarious games, making distorted faces with buddies miles away and doing high-tech things grandparents don’t understand.

Today, this is where I sit to write thank-you notes, let the cat in and out the back door, watch Law & Order and do my needlepoint while the pasta boils, eat breakfast with Morning Joe, and take my daily blood pressure. Oh, and a landline is within reach on the dishwasher.

Mine is an old-fashioned kitchen. No center island. No double-decker ovens. No fancy freezer. But it has The Nook, steeped in family history. Nope, like I’ve said, I’ll never nuke it. That just won’t happen on my watch.

Now if the dining room table could talk— but that’s another story. G

Spring is definitely in the air.

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