Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I REALLY want no one in my kitchen/cooking area except my sous/wife. Obviously this problem only occurs when we allow ‘non-residents’ (guests) into BILLVILLE All of my friends know this yet intrusions occur. . . . I am always polite and simply reiterate but WTF FOLKS?!?!

This little rant is presented here because I was showcasing the shrimp/orzo dish that I promoted here last week. Our guests are exceptional cooks and winos so I really wanted to nail this. But at just the most crucial junction (ain’t that always the way...) wherein 3 dishes are coming together - - - you get the picture.

Suffice it to say that I can confirm that the dish is still pretty damn good even with ALMOST burnt orzo - VERY BROWN. Of course I was simultaneously making Kenji’s superb ‘browned butter cornbread’ https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/01/moist-and-tender-brown-butter-cornbread-recipe.html which involves a VERY hot cast iron pan and sizzling batter. Oh, what could go wrong?

I’M THINKING BABY GATES AT ALL ENTRANCES TO MY KITCHEN...

Hah!

I'm actually very good at tuning people out when I'm busy, and the kitchen is large enough for people to stand around without me bumping into them.

However, this is the one reason why an island with bar stools would be nice; to allow guests to watch & chat with no chance of getting in my way. It's amazing how many people will do the cat thing of "what are you doing?" even when knives are flying or flames are shooting.

When I bought my house in 1975 my first requirement was that it have a dining room separate from the kitchen. We always ued the dining room for meals when I was growing up and so did my then husband. So for many years, guest were entertained in the living room and then went on to the dining room and I could close the door between the dining and kitchen if I wanted. That all went by the wayside when I married Steve. His family would not stay in the living room, instead they insisted on the family room that ends in the kitchen and congregated there. Even had the tv on at times (I purposefully did not put a tv in the living room). It drives me crazy. I do not want to chat while I'm cooking or explain what I'm doing. Different cultures I guess. Steve thought it was rude if I asked that they stay away from the kitchen. My stove is a JennAir without a hood and one side is in the kitchen and the other in the family room, no island. So if something splattered ...Because our house is bigger, we did all the holidays and I cooked. I ended up having to gather folks and say outright. Please go into the living room an do not come into the kitchen or talk to me if you'd like to eat anytime soon. Probably the rudest person on earth, but then they got excellent food. After 25 years, they finally learned to stay in the family room, still won't go in the living room. Now that I'm old, it is even worse. Luckily, we don't do the big dinners for his family anymore since they live out of town now. My kids and their spouses/friends and grandkids all got trained by their parents so are not a problem.

Fuzzy, I do have an island with barstools. In fact, I have two islands with seating, so I put the apps on the island right next to the great room so people generally stay in that area. If my guests do want to talk, they can move to the island closest to the cooking area to watch and talk, but they never entering my cooking space. Works great.

I put bar stools around my island in the hope of keeping people out of my kitchen. Can't tell you how many parties at some crucial juncture someone is standing in exactly the wrong spot. Or the time when I lovingly made a whole bunch of gluten free dishes for my celiac friend for our giant 20 person sit-down dinner Christmas party (in addition to a bunch of ones that were not similarly designed), only to turn around to find a friend 'helping' me by stirring the gluten free dishes with the spoon from the gravy (yes, made with flour). All of them (she was indiscriminately stirring while chatting with someone else). I'm just glad I noticed it and didn't kill one of my guests with cross contaminated food (and that I still had a stash of food that I could pull from the freezer and feed her). We have nicknamed them the "stay the f*ck out of my kitchen" stools. They do seem to work, especially if you strategically place appies in front of them.

When people are sitting at the stools at the island in my kitchen, and looking bored, I say "You want something to do? Here, chop these onions!"