A Country Kitchen

My vision of an old country farmhouse kitchen...

It's an old settled place where smoke curls from the chimney and natural, honest materials have been used, wood and stone, brick and tile.  As you walk up the stone path with perennial flowers flanked on both sides, you notice a large covered porch and your eyes take it all in, geraniums and flowers in pots and cans of every shape and size, foxglove blooming under the window, and clematis climbing up the sides of the porch.  The delphiniums are shining in the bright morning sun, and a comfy old swing are all there,  friendly dogs greet you, and cats sit up yawning, they all come to say hi and welcome you here.  As you open the wood screen door and step inside you enter another world and all your senses come alive, a richly complicated smell greets you, one of wood smoke and baking bread, herbs and garlic, frying onions and soups, hot jams and vanilla, yeast and dishwater, somehow all melded together over the years.


The stone floor has been smoothed and polished over the years by the passing of countless feet,  and rag rugs are scattered throughout.  At the center of it all is a thick handmade wood slab table, scoured and worn over the years by daily use, it has been made strong and stable to last through the years, meals are eaten here, plans are begun here, and laughter and good cheer happen here.  In a corner sits the  large blue porcelain sink, and on the other side is the wood fired range with it's eccentricities and moods, that must be faithfully served to bake bread and boil water, it glows warm overlooking the garden below and there are comfy cushioned chairs on either side, as sourdough bread rises nearby. 

Every country cook has a certain squirrelling impulse and a desire to store good things away into pots, jars, and baskets.  Things like chutneys and blackberry cordials, dried fruit, and herbs, baskets that are filled with apples and cherries, pears and plums, all waiting to be transformed into glimmering jeweled jars of jams and preserves, herb vinegars and oils.  This kitchen is a place filled with yeast and milk cultures, vegetables fresh from the garden and whole grains in bins and containers.  Hanging from the ceiling are racks that hold baskets and large copper pots, bundles of herbs, and strings of dried onions and garlic. 

An alcove off to the side leads to the pantry where all the overflow goes, and although it's a small pantry it is lovingly filled to the brim with every good thing.  Large crocks are filled with fermenting pickles, sauerkraut and homebrew.  The floor to ceiling shelves are lined with home canned vegetables and juices from the garden,  jars of jams and preserves  from the berries, and tins of crackers and homemade soups.  Strings of spicy sausages and curing salami's are hanging above, and cheese wheels in different sizes line the shelves.   

The sunlight coming in through the windows was a warm, golden glow, and as you look about you see parsley and chives on a sunny windowsill,  framed by billowy curtains that blow in the breeze on warm summer mornings. The floors are well swept and the rugs are all shook, the laundry is hung by the garden below.  And the farm sounds in the distance of goats and roosters crowing, all add to the feeling of a world within a world, where it could all begin and end right here.  For within is a refuge of comfort and safety where family and friends are warmed and cherished and generously fed. 

PS. I thought about this vision while sitting in front of my woodstove while it was cold and rainy outside and began daydreaming of a long ago farm kitchen on a warm sunny day.  So I pulled out my handwritten journal and began to write, some of this dream is already in place in my home, much of it I'm still working towards.  I wanted to find a photograph of a kitchen like this and I couldn't find one, so I pulled together a few items in my kitchen that were close by.  Milk from last nights milking, eggs from the chickens, garlic I grew and braided, hazelnuts I gathered in the fall, and a loaf of bread I made, winter vegetables from the garden, and a few sprigs of sage.  I am a romantic when it comes to the old fashioned ways, and I hope my children and future grandchildren will derive this sense of well being in our own country kitchen.