Together in the Kitchen
I grew up in a house that made me happy vastly more often than I was sad. When they chose a place to raise their kids, my parents chose a small Texas town and a quiet street in a neighborhood with good schools. The house isn’t large, and I still visit, now with my husband and kids, and return to memories I love. I remember the sprawling shade of the live oak trees in the front yard and the cool quilt I laid out on to read and read and read in the summertime. I remember the feeling of my hands in potting soil moving plants with Dad into new pots on the side yard. I remember Christmas mornings, the feeling of my bare feet tucked under me, pressing against the fabric of the couch while I watched siblings open presents and waited for mine with glee.
Some of the most enduring memories are the nights spent talking with my mother. My mom is the one who showed me the joy of curiosity, especially how wonderful it can be to learn about our friends, our neighbors, and even new people you meet on the street. She taught me to turn my curiosity outward, teaching me that there are wonderful discoveries to be made around every corner of a person’s story.
And when she shone that light on me, I felt my heart dance. Usually on some weekend night, myself a teenager or home from college, my mom and I would start talking. We start talking on the side yard or sitting in the living room on the couch. She asked me about my friends or about school or about what I wanted to be when I do after college. Whatever I told her about would turn into hours of conversation because she’d ask great questions that made me feel seen and loved and interesting. She’d share stories from her college years or her reflections on growing up in the Texas desert, and she’d connect it back to the story I’d shared and both our ideas of the world would grow and grow.
Eventually, one of us would need a drink of water or want a snack.
“I wanna get something from the kitchen,” one of us would say. The other one would follow into the kitchen, still at ease in our conversation. We’d glance at the clock and know we ought to go to bed, and so, we wouldn’t return to the couch. Instead we’d lean against the counter as if any minute we were going to go to bed until I finally I gave up and took a seat on the counter. We simply stayed in the kitchen for an hour or two more, into the small morning hours while everyone else slept.
The kitchen. The kitchen became the place we’d connect, talking for hours, sharing the stories of our lives together, my mom and I.
The kitchen has become that kind of place in nearly every place I’ve lived. In Oxford, We cooked walnut and brie sandwiches and read books out loud in the kitchen of our shared home when I studied abroad in Oxford. In Kolkata, Beena taught me to make roti, making the dough and rolling it nearly every night with me in her kitchen. And in my first Armenian family’s kitchen, my host mom Arpine invited me to play a game she knew would help me feel welcomed, seen and loved by her and her family.
Arshak, Anahit and Geghetsik, part of my beloved host family in Armenia, 2009
Here’s a bit about that game in that Armenian kitchen from my upcoming book which I shared on Instagram this week:
I practiced Armenian with my new family at breakfast. In the morning Geghetsik usually offered me eggs fried deeply in vegetable oil or hard-boiled. I preferred the second warming my hands on the hot egg shell in the cold morning, the simple taste a perfect pair for fresh dill and tomato.
Arshak came in as soon as the eggs were finished, and on the best days, Miran was still at home and not already working in someone else’s field with his tractor he rented out to other people’s farms. With Arpine, Anahit, Geghetsik, Miran, Arshak and me at the small kitchen table, our knees touched and our elbows bumped. I watched them pass around herbs and salt and lavash in a kind of improvised choreography only a family sitting together like this for decades can know.
“Brent,” Arpine called to me on my first morning. And when she had my eyes, she pointed to an egg.
“Ed inch e?” She asked. What is it? I felt it then - This was the way in, the words of the table like a set of keys.
“Dzu.” I said.
“Ayo!” Arpine drew out the long ‘o’ in celebration.
She held up a fork, challenging me further in a game she wanted me to accept and win.
“Patarakakh.”
“Ayo.”
Anahit joined in, pointing to the shallow bowl of fried potatoes.
“Brent,” she said. “Ed inch e?”
“Kartofil.”
“Ayo!” Anahit clapped with glee. The three women laughed. Miran laughed. Arshak smiled, thinking.
Geghetsik was beginning to over excite. She made like she wanted to stand up with glee. “Brent,” Geghetsik said, eyes scanning the kitchen counter for something to point at.
Arshak interupted her. “Che, che, che.”
He stood up and walked to the kitchen counter and picked up a bottle.
“Brent, ed inch e?”
“Vodka.” I said.
“Ayooooo!” he nearly screamed. The entire table laughed. I was laughing and nearly crying, not so much from the laughter itself, but from the sheer happiness of human connection coupled with the realization that, with this family, I was building a memory. A story that was just ours.
Many of us are getting ready to gather in our kitchens for the holidays. So, I’ll make a little Christmas wish - May each of us bring to our conversations a bit of curiosity and a sense of wonder about those we gather with. May we stay up late luxuriating in the joy of being together and the infinite delight of hearing each other’s stories. May we use the little things - the cooking, the cleaning, the presents, the time - to make connections and stoke those connections like a small flame that can, with care, turn into a warming fire.
