Kitchens: The New Living Room

            “Kitchens are the new living rooms.” These words, written in an interview with Rossana Orlandi on the last page of the magazine La Cucina Italiana, stopped me as I read them. I had reached the point at which I quickly skim through the last few pages of a magazine because I’ve already been reading for at least an hour. I’m a little tired of reading but won’t allow myself to put the magazine down without having flipped through every page and at least glanced at every article. (I’m one of those people who have trouble leaving things unfinished).  Anyway, I was not being super attentive of the words – I don’t even remember the other questions or subjects of the interview – but with these six words I hit the breaks on my speed reading. “Kitchens are the new living rooms.” I’ve said the word living room a thousand times in my life, but seldom reflected on the meaning of the term. Living room…a place in which you live; not in which you sit or stay, but live. And for me, my kitchen is the place in which I live. I probably spend more time in the kitchen than the living room (which in our apartment is kind of connected to everything else and consists of a designated area with a TV, a sofa, a loveseat, and an ottoman).  When I host people, we usually spend our time together in the kitchen preparing food, chatting, and eating until the main meal, which is at the kitchen table (again, in a small apartment you don’t always have the luxury of separate rooms for cooking and  eating).  In addition, our American kitchens these days, even some of those in apartments, are decently large and may even rival the size of the living room. The kitchen: the new living room - a room in which we live.

            My boyfriend and I love to cook and to eat. We plan our meals like old Italian grandmothers. I wake up and think about food: What will I eat for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? What should I get ready or prepare now? One of our favorite things to do is go grocery shopping together. I love to create and to share my food, and when I am at home, cooking is a de-stress, relaxing activity for me. Our kitchen is pretty nice for an apartment – we have a good-sized refrigerator, a microwave, oven, ample counterspace, and even an island on which are located the sink and dishwasher (this is what sealed the deal when we were apartment hunting). In sum, it’s relatively spacious and comfortable. However, when there are two cooks (aka both of us) in our kitchen, all of that space suddenly shrinks.

            There are some couples that are capable of cooking together. Not standing in the kitchen together while one cooks, but really cooking together. Sweetly passing each other another spoon to mix the sauce that they have both contributed to creating while saying Here you go, dear and Thanks, honey, giving each other a kiss and a smile while cooking harmoniously.  They joke lightheartedly and at the end of their labors produce a beautiful meal made of bubbly, happy love (or something like that). I have friends like this, usually both of them are shy or quiet people who work together well and happily. When I visit these friends, I watch them in awe. How do they do it? We, both extroverts with Italian origins, are less than tranquil in our food-creating abode. Our kitchen, instead of a pleasant scene of picturesque love,  becomes a bit of a battlefield when we cook together. He is always fixed on the task at hand, moving from left to right, up and down, capable of being in every corner at every counter at once. I am always blocking his way, and he tells me so. I, on the other hand, am small, but agile and fiery, and I like to cook exactly how I like to cook. When we cook together, I am always over his shoulder, criticizing, asking, You sure you want to do it like that? Really? or  So…you’re going to also put  (insert any ingredient that I like more than he does – garlic, for example - here) in the dish, aren’t you? And bless your poor little heart if you cut the onions wrong or touch my frying pan when it’s cooking something. He is also the first to put his “touch” on food – flipping the contents of the frying pan, cutting the onions how he sees fit, or putting an extra spice that I don’t want in the food. The only thing that we have found that we are able to cook together is pizza. He makes and rolls the dough, I get the toppings ready. Then we each dress our own pizzas, not even considering touching the other’s.

            Easter this year was no exception to this phenomenon. My parents drove from Atlanta and my sister traveled from South Bend to join us in Cincinnati for the occasion: we were 9 total that weekend with my boyfriend, his family, my family, and two of our friends. Friday we cooked at our apartment…actually, our agreement was that I would cook at our apartment while he set the table. (See? It’s not that we aren’t a good team!) The next day, we had our big Easter meal at his parent's house. He was the chef, making his famous oven-baked macaroni and cheese, beef roast, and salad. My only job was to do the asparagus and cut the bread.  I prepared the vegetables, cutting them and placing them in a pan with dressing while making sure to stay out of his area of the kitchen, but the oven was completely full with his concoctions. I assessed the situation. After realizing what asking for space and a different temperature in the oven might entail, I asked anyway. He, running from the roast to the boiling water with the macaroni, responded with frustration, “There are too many cooks in the kitchen…too many cooks in the kitchen!” (At this point I would like to remind you that we were the only ones in his parent’s kitchen, whose size rivals that of all of the living space in my apartment combined.) My bad – I should have known better. I smiled to myself – nothing changes even with the holidays – and I left to sit with my family…in the living room.

            In reality, I think that our kitchen really is the room in which live. We cook, eat, fight when someone cuts an onion incorrectly, cry when we discover the pizza crust was made with rice flour and disintegrates when we try to flip it, and even laugh and embrace. Our kitchen holds for us opportunity to feel all emotions and experience life in many ways. It is our own “Living Room.”

            Today, I’d like to share with everyone the recipe that my boyfriend made for our Easter roast. He is the expert when it comes to meat slowly cooking in the oven, and this tender, succulent beef roast is one of the best I’ve had. He forwarded me an email with the recipe that he sent to a friend after the friend tried this bit of deliciousness, and instead of putting my own touch on it by changing it, I’ll share it to you just like he describes.
(to read the Italian version of this blog at Faccio Tutto da Solo, click here!)
 

Best Pot Roast Email

So.

I had the butcher show me the roasts he had then cut off a section of
the rib eye roast he had with the ribs tied on. (about a lb per
person)

set the oven to 450 F

in the pan cut up mixed fingerling potatoes - I like the gold, purple,
and red ones (gives color to the dish), some carrots, and if you like
some celery

take the roast and pat it dry

cut off some extra of the top fat and season it with salt, pepper, and
your favorite seasoning (mine is my secret but others work great too)

put the roast in the pan over the cut veggies and drizzle with olive oil

bake in the 450 over for 15-25 min till its getting nice and brown
then drop the heat down to 325 and bake (time depends on the roast's
weight, mine was 7.5 lbs so it took about 2 hours)

baste the roast every once in a while and rotate the pan every 30
minutes so it cooks evenly

when the times done take it out of the pan and let it sit for at least
5-10 min with tin foil over it

take the veggies out put on a plate or serving dish in the mean time

carve the roast and enjoy alone (its plenty juicy) or with horseradish
or mustard...there u go

 

Okay I lied – but I gave it my best shot - I’m going to append this recipe by sharing the internal temperatures and times that you should cook a roast for medium rare/medium/well, so that you can check the doneness to your liking with your meat thermometer.

Medium Rare: 145°F (63°C)
Medium: 160°F (71°C)
Well Done: 170°F (77°C)