Missing My Kitchen…
I`ve been away from home for less than a week and todays trip home is just on time!
When I travel for business I, like most, miss family, pets and friends. I also find myself (as I`m sure others do here) missing my kitchen.
The obvious reasons for missing my kitchen include the ability to eat what and how I`d like, access to the freshest ingredients, a wonderful pantry and the ability to cook anything I`d like on a whim.
Travelling for business generally means less access to the types of foods I`d value most. Last night`s dinner was in a restaurant with others and featured spaghetti with canned sauce – certainly not the cruelest fate and it was absolutely palatable. But it`s not nearly the same as the case of sauce we still have left from last year waiting at home.
Despite that, I can easily live without a full pantry and the options my home kitchen provides with relative ease. I am not a picky eater and can make do with anything at all and find an appreciation for what I do have. There are many in the world that would be so lucky as to have that can of sauce that I ate last night and I try not to lose sight of that.
What I really miss is the ability to cook. Working in the kitchen, to me, is my place of peace and comfort. I love to work my way through a tested recipe or the experience of trying something new. The repetition of a single task (like slicing) and the thrill of the senses abound when making a complex dish – or something as simple as toast.
The act of cooking, to me (and many others), is an act which is reserved only to my own home or to the homes of people who are very close to me (and the odd professional kitchen that I get to visit). Just being in a kitchen is a place of warmth to me, a place of home.
It`s a place you rarely see when you travel for work - and one that`s easy to miss.
Do you miss your kitchen when you travel?
Comments
Definitely! I’m a late bloomer in the kitchen, but I enjoy cooking so much now. And because I have food allergies (wheat, corn), and choose to eat locally, organically and humanely, eating away from home is just difficult. I’ll have pork ribs, and wonder, “Was this poor pig raised under florescent lighting without ever seeing the sun?” Or I’ll have vegetarian stir fry and think, “Was this tofu made from soybeans pelted with RoundUp?” And I think of my freezer, with its cache of free range grass fed Texas Longhorn beef, and its traditionally raised chicken, and my larder with the spelt flour, and the pickled asparagus, and the canned stewed plums from the tree in my own back yard. Sigh. I think I’m becoming a homebody!
Not really, it is good to eat out and every chance we get, we shop the local grocer and eat as good as we can then. In a restaurant, though iffy, salads and such are a good thing to eat. I thoroughly enjoy any time I am away, I guess I am one to miss my own bed. My danger in traveling is finding a food I really like and not having access to it when at home. Happy traveling to you.