‘THE KITCHEN-GARAGE with a hubby hatch: this is now a must-have conversion
in the suburbs of the redwood dream.’
The concept of wholesome living was the brainchild of a US architect
elusive in the annals. In her spacious domain the triple goddess animates
the frieze around her altar: cultured home cook, with giant spaghetti
towers; archivist of the husband’s battle songs, the bubbling myth
cauldron; observant shepherdess of wolverines with winning ways.
1st – The Troubadour’s Kitchen
A propeller in the chimney turns the spit, as if Leonardo had paid a visit
in the dead of night. Smoke rises around the hood, warming the solar and
driving vermin from the woodwork. While servants stir the broth and
polish the silver, cousins upstairs enjoy another hilarious dulcimer lesson.
2nd – The Kitchen Sink
Shrill accusations. An angry iron scorches a shirt, a pressure cooker flies
and crashes, waking up baby. Then the broom handle on the underside
of the floor, and two or three seconds of silence – all but the palliative
wireless voice like soapsuds from ‘a factory somewhere in England’.
3rd – The Collector’s Kitchen
Vegas is the mecca for magnets: every hotel has a treasure trove, often
filling half the souvenir shop – overpriced, of course. Back home you
consider bribing your mother-in-law to slip a few bucks to the senior
housing super for any refrigerator gems going begging in vacated units.
4th – The Kitchenette
Caravan living: adventures in a portable landscape. The silent song of the
bonny suds, technically Scottish, akin to the firth’s foam, their rainbow a
fractal of the marvels over Suilven, lochans sparkling after rain in cleansed
sunlight. Chores are so light and fleeting in the mountains.
5th – The Rustic Kitchen
An abused gas Aga costs a thousand pounds for a proper service. All you
can do is waitress at more farmhouse weddings or pressure-wash more
chicken sheds, meanwhile making do on the electric hob donated by the
gas-safe engineer who divined a leak on the scary side of the floor slates.
6th – The Extended Kitchen
Green fingers gallop in retreat from the culinary onslaught. Recession has
loosened red tape, leaving the south-side neighbours defenceless. You gift
them, via amazon, a starter pack of shade-loving seeds: Pansies, Yellow
loosestrife, False lupine, Virginia bluebells, Canada columbine.
All six – The Kitchen of the Seventh Happiness
What is the sound of no tap dripping? The toaster’s crumbs evacuate
into the compost shoot. Like a shaman, acid-cool, silkily the knife skills
graduate glides into his sacred arena. There’s one anomaly: a timer in the
form of a leaf-hatted votary in the temple of the Dragon of Peace.
♦
Introduction to Six-Way Mirror | The Index of Hexagrams and Cantos
