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A cruddy little kitchen, a lifetime of loving food


I was looking for a recipe. You know, like everyone else every day everywhere in the world, I wanted something tasty for dinner. I had salmon. I had old tried-and-true salmon recipes I've used happily in the past. I just wanted something different.
So I Googled "honey bourbon salmon." This is a thing I've seen on menus. Sounds great. I can make that, can't I? I have honey, I have bourbon; I have salmon. I can make this!

Then I spent an hour slogging through a half dozen recipe blogs with long stories, beautiful photographs, freestyle poetry singing the praises of farm-raised salmon -- or wild-caught salmon -- or canned salmon -- and all of it took ten to fifteen minutes to load out here in the boonies because all of those popular, beautiful recipe blogs were monetized. Ads flashed. Clickbait beckoned. Video players popped up and disembodied hands cracked eggs into stainless steel bowls.

I scrolled down, ever downward, ever onward, trying to get past the homilies and dancing wooden spoons and commercials for name brand convenience products I probably can't afford, and when I finally got the actual recipe, it turns out I needed turmeric or tarragon or Hungarian sweet paprika, and I don't even know if Hungarian sweet paprika is the same as the "paprika" I got at Walmart last month. I just wanted a recipe, not a timeshare spiel, y'know?

So I got mad and called my sister and asked her if I could start my own dang cheap ass recipe blog, and she said yes.

So here we are.

My kitchen is truly cruddy. The dishwasher broke years ago, and I can't afford to replace it. My son tried to replace it, but the delivery people from Home Depot looked at our wiring and our plumbing and noped right out of here. Not even making that up. Our house is paid for, but that means it's affordable, and affordable really means "cruddy." 

The range is a 17-year-old electric with ceramic top. Sometime ago, the oven door fell apart and we had to order parts to replace it. My husband repaired it. My husband is a very nice fellow, but he is not exactly what you would call "handy." MOST of the parts went back into/onto the oven door. There are smoke stains from when he ran the "cleaning" mode one time without even making an attempt to sweep out the crumbs and crud from the inside. The whole house was full of smoke that time. It was... eventful.

The cabinets are falling apart. They were cheap to begin with, installed sometime in 1991 or 1992. My children grew up beating the hell out of these cabinets. The lazy susan cabinet in the corner doesn't even close any more. Drawers are glued and bungee-corded back together when they fall apart. I have replaced two knobs; the rest are really ugly.

I don't want to talk about the flooring. At least I don't cook on the flooring.

There's a terrible side-by-side refrigerator which I loathe. It's 9 years old, and I hope every day that it will die so I can drag its carcass outside and set it on fire. The ice maker broke the first year. The drawers in the fridge side are breaking more and more every day. As dog is my witness, I will never buy another side-by-side refrigerator again. 

So if I post photos with my recipes, and you think, "OMG, that kitchen really is cruddy," then you know it's truly mine. It's truly cruddy. And I will never sell my soul to an advertiser to get a decent kitchen. I have too much integrity for that. If I can make great food in a wretched setting, you can, too. And you don't have to wait for the ads to load.

I promise.

Sincerely,
Bay
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Location: Tennessee, USA

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