Remembering Oxford (2): In My Place (The Kitchen of 8 Crick Road)

I was going to write about the kitchen in our house (which we called simply Crick), and snickered a little thinking about the patriarchy (I wouldn't call them sexist) jokes that flew around our house. Of course, the fact that I loved cooking and baking and making tea and coffee helped to place me squarely in the large kitchen with tall windows (from which I know as a fact a grown man can leap quite easily). Wearing the aprons which hung from hooks on the back of the door also added to my domestic appearance. Housemates noticed and we loved to joke (I even dressed as a 50s housewife for Halloween).

I love Crick kitchen, probably empty now, unless Jonathan is making himself a very early breakfast. For 24 people we had 4 ovens, 8 hobs, 2 sinks, 2 tables, and 2 commercial-sized refrigerators, one with a large poster of Shakespeare and his plays. Considering location, and the fact that I was in the minority of non-English majors in our home, William seemed to be quite an appropriate face to stare back at us as we contemplated what to next shove into our faces and go off to study. Actually, we weren't exactly like that.

Indeed, though many meals were eaten in a hurry, this kitchen was also like an art studio. It was there that T.J. and Dave created their peach dessert which we savoured twice with melty ice cream all over it (and which we came to just call "peaches"). Stacia made apple cake and the ever popular no-bake cookies (so good when scooped out of the leftovers bag after the final Tuesday afternoon tea at Frewin). Heather made pumkin almost everything, including happy engagement muffins for Rob, and for Aubrey and Jeff. Garlic bread, we cannot forget, was plentiful, and the French press rarely empty. Jonathan was always producing something exquisite with mushrooms or puff pastry or something quite exotic. I baked several batches of scones in this kitchen (which disappeared quite rapidly), and Amanda made Aunt Amanda's good time oatmeal bake on the days I needed it most it seemed. :)

Food groups of about eight people ate together several nights a week, sending in chefs each night, usually two at a time. We always made the kitchen smell so good! I would often walk in after a long day to hear music playing from speakers by the window (usually Noah and the Whale), and to be offered a cup of tea or coffee. There is also nothing like the sound of the front door opening, and going to the kitchen to turn on the kettle! I had my first taste of roasted chestnuts in Crick kitchen, and ate Jon's homemade guacamole with my fingers and from a big wooden spoon.

On Thanksgiving, we celebrated with a Dia de Gracias fiesta! We all made some dish of Mexican food to share. Lizzie was in the kitchen for four hours making tortillas, where I joined here an hour into the process, followed by others as we all cycled in and out of the kitchen, dancing to music, singing, and sneaking bites of Lizzie and Cameron's chips and T.J.'s salsas.

"Crickmas" was similar to El Dia de Gracias, full of people coming in after turning in essays to help set up for a meal of breakfast foods and baked goods. And the night our first departers headed to the Gloucester Green bus station, we scheduled a pot luck before seeing them off. There was salmon and mushroom puffs, salad, toasty nuts and granola, mashed potatoes, flat bread, sparkling lemonade, and more. It really was a magical kitchen, and I mean that with no melodrama whatsoever, no sarcasm either (though the sarcasm flew through that kitchen on a regular basis). I am the feminist who baked and cooked and served people tea and felt like had I found a place in Crick kitchen.