Sitting In A Comfy Kitchen While Watching Someone Else Make Lunch...

A simple lunch is prepared.

Visiting an elderly couple yesterday I sat on a kitchen chair and watched the wife make a simple lunch. A proper lunch. Not a lunch from a box, take away or fast food establishment. Well, good luck finding those here because the nearest Fast Food chain is a 25 km drive away. For us, the mighty Hamburger & Fries are more of a treat.

Anyway, I chatted to her in the kitchen while watching her make lunch. Potatoes, soup and flour dumplings. Dumplings made by hand. With eggs laid by the faithful chickens roaming the yard. Their happy " cackcackcack " formed a nice background noise.

The dough for the dumplings had to have the right consistency as it needed to be grated into tiny dough crumbs. Too loose and it wouldn't grate, to hard and it would taste more floury than needed. She used an ordinary salad grater. You know the hand-powered one!

Almost all of our kitchens are fully equipped with the latest electronic cooking devices & gadgets. I bet if you had to make a list of what you own in your kitchen cupboards and drawers, you wouldn't know the half of it. Or you have several of the same. In your fully equipped kitchen, do you also only use a favourite knife, spoon and bowl. Does anyone ever pull out all those cumbersome to clean utensils?

I find it is rather ironic if not stupid, to ask for all the mod - cons for your kitchen when you send out your wedding-gift list. Stupid, because you won't know how to use the half of it, and ironic because you won't use most of it. Who doesn't still hoard a wedding gift fully wrapped in a cupboard?

She must have made this soup a thousand times because while we were talking the dough misbehaved. She knew every nuance of this dough and how to get it workable by heart. For me it was a soothing and comfortable hour. When the dough was too soft, no problem and no stress. Just add a bit more flour. It kind of made me think of how we ( possibly me ) get our knickers in a knot if life doesn't work out the way we want it to.

As children we all want to grow up and change the world. We think up huge plans on how to do it. Plans that get interrupted by normal life. Instead of being disappointed in the ordinary life, maybe that is the ideal that we are all searching for. You know, the ordinary. Like making a simple yet delicious soup for lunch for example.

Instead of tearing our hair out at our problems, perhaps we should add a bit more " flour " or less. Watching this lady make her lunch and correct it almost with her eyes closed, made me wonder. Have we got it all wrong? Have we gone overboard on the Cosmo articles and Oprah shows? Life is simple. Life works. Life needs adjustment now and again. That is all...

Biggi