An Open Letter to All the Kitchens We've Hated

Can you taste the distain in the dishes a kitchen you hate delivers?

“I hate you… despite all you do for me,” you retort, seething, under your breath. A throwaway quip we may have all been guilty of directing towards our parents during those tricky teenage years where you knew everything and they *clearly* knew nothing. Maybe a similar sentiment stirred within for teachers, professors or sports coaches in the past, all of which knew your talent and potential if pushed, much to your distain and know-it-all nonchalence.

We don’t like to use the loaded term ‘hate’ often but it’s an effective way of conveying certain feelings of frustration, hopelessness and furious anger we all harbour from time to time. But, here, we’re talking not about a person but about something inanimate which we hate yet is so vital to being. A series of inanimate objects and structures which is so often personified, and if it were a real person we’re sure we’d hate them too. A “beating heart” of the home, a sanctuary which offers comfort and peace in times of need but also a place of sentence, a minefield dappled in issues, failures and frustrations like a series of unfortunate events…

Yes, we’re talking about our kitchen. The source of not only our sustenance but also our livelihood. We write about food, we test and develop recipes, we’re constantly seeking to elevate our chef skills at home, yet we HATE the place we operate in… though we love (mostly) what comes from it. However successful the exploits or spoils that come from it, it doesn’t detract from the struggle to get there and how unhappy the space makes us… we wonder: does it come through in our food?

Ghosts of Kitchens Past: Childhood

People don’t talk enough about how much they hate their kitchens. We’re fairly certain our support group exists in a majority, not a minority. Haven’t we ALL operated in less-than-ideal kitchen situations over the years? From the ceramic hobs of our childhood that took an age to heat then you burned your hand on it an hour later when it still hadn’t cooled to the university house shares where the fridge fostered several diverse biospheres of bacteria from stale food or the oven was used more for storage than sustenance.

Though many of us might view our childhood kitchen through rose-tinted glasses, we’re here to remind you they were kind-of the worst. We all had “the drawer”, right? One drawer in every kitchen like a mass grave of forgotten, unloved and broken utensils. The smelly cupboard, too. Why did every kitchen of a cetain era have that one cupboard which seemed to fester a lingering mould stench no matter how often it was deep-cleaned or re-organised. Also, why is every knife in our parents’ kitchens always blunt?

Ghosts of Kitchens Past: The First Flat

We became a couple in 2011 and moved, all doe-eyed and naïve, to London together in mid-2013 sharing a kitchen solo for the first time. Things didn’t quite go how we planned and plain sailing quickly went the way of rocky crossing. Jobless - but using our savings - the flat hunt went from a delusional dance with the fairies to a resignation that our expectations would never meet reality. We compromised, resigning ourselves to a tiny bedsit in far East London where West Ham met Stratford, paying six months rent up-front (!!) as a deposit.

An ex-council property, the live-in landlord downstairs had split a small detached house into three individual ‘apartments’ (by the time we moved a year later he greedily split three flats further into four). One floor up, our interior galley kitchen was about the size of most main bathrooms in modern new builds. It had one tiny window, counter space was non-existent and why would you need the luxury of storage? We had to buy a kitchen trolley and an IKEA dresser just to be able to store enough stuff and have a place to prepare.

But, in the infancy of our food writing adventures, this is where we tested and developed recipes to boost our fledgling blog with our limited supply of kitchen equipment and made seriously frugal meals due to fast-dwindling bank accounts. We got quite good at freeform bakes and one pot/one pan “wonders” (which are often everything but wonderful, especially during a freezing winter where it was a choice between ingredients or topping up our pre-pay electricity meter. It’s the kitchen we tried to entertain our friends in which, looking back, is a sad, almost pitiful thought. We were known to serve a cheeseboard proudly on an ironing board.

The Guardian came over once to document a Eurovision party, and you can see in the snaps a hint of how tiny it was. It functioned, just about, for a year, save for a three-month saga of a mouse infestation. The clock hadn’t ticked a second beyond the 12 month lease and we made a hurried, blissful escape, almost under the cover of darkness. The last act was to take a photo of the empty kitchen, sticking two fingers up to it, before turning on our heels and slamming the door shut for the final time and rattling down the rickety stairs triumphantly.

Ghosts of Kitchens Past: The Adulthood Upgrade

Then we landed in Peckham, southeast London. Where West Ham had been a rude awakening and realisation that the grass wasn’t always greener in building a new life in London, Peckham was the opposite. We spent three years there, and our fifth floor flat was wonderful, including its kitchen. We had a gas hob for the first time ever, a large fridge, nearly-new oven and a balcony with a courtyard view. We had a place to store the everyday plates, and even a spot for the “nicer” ones for when we had friends and family ‘round. Over time the kitchen-cum-living room’s IKEA storage cabinets became filled with more props and kitchen equipment as we expanded our repertoire, and we even had space to appoint a corner with a long lusted-after piece of kit: a KitchenAid stand mixer. It was one of our “we made it” moments.

We were quite happy in that kitchen and it must have showed as it’s where GastroGays as a blog really flourished. We shot painfully crap YouTube videos in there, penned our Gay Times Magazine recipe column for two years from that very kitchen and we baked dutifully each month for our cherished Band of Bakers meet ups with local, like-minded foodies. Plus, we joined Instagram during that period –– unknowing that it would become the most critical social media platform for our business in a short few years later.

It wasn’t perfect, though. The outlet from the washing machine continuously spilled over and flooded under the sink, much of the landlord’s stuff was still in-situ as she lived abroad and even though it was 100 times better than the last kitchen we still quickly outgrew it and it had extended periods of chaos. Then Brexit was voted in, and our love for London was tarnished overnight. The city of opportunity was self-sabotaging and closing in on itself, suddenly harsh and unwelcoming, the tin of post-2012 Olympics positivity had run dry. So, with a view to where we wanted our ‘roots’ to be, we made the decision to move back home. One of our the saddest parts was saying goodbye to that kitchen, because we had a hunch what might be facing us when we returned over the Irish Sea wasn’t all it was cracked up to be...

Kitchens, Current: The All-Ireland Search

Creeping close to our thirties and now in an unnatural house share with Patrick’s parents and sister (pass it along: parents should never be housemates with their grown-up children and their partners) we were in the throes of naïvety again, this time navigating the stressful world of self-employment and freelance-dom whilst house-hunting, once again with no structured jobs to provide security.

It was the beginning of Ireland’s currently-spiralling into the abyss, hellhole of a housing market becoming a real issue and eighteen (!) long, tedious months passed. Our search area at one point was ‘anywhere in Ireland’, viewing properties in the likes of Athy, strongly considering Galway and Dungarvan was top of the list. We’d had the sub-standard kitchens of our past, we’d had the long commutes and we’d built a business online so we just needed three things: a good kitchen, proximity to a motorway and access to strong broadband. You have no idea how hard that was to find in 2018, forget about it now in 2023.

Unbelievably, we eventually found a gem literally around the corner in Drogheda through sheer persistence. Close to family and unfurnished, we could put our personality and stamp on an mid-19th century gate lodge, which boasted a garden out the back to grow our own food in raised beds and build in a barbecue space, things we’d imagined as fantasy when living in London. It’s a bucolic setting and a beautiful, historic building that just sinks into its heritage like a big ‘ol baked Mont d’Or in autumn. We also now have five barbecues. No judgement.

If you’ve been part of our audience for the last four years or so you’re probably aware we don’t like to go into a huge amount of detail about our home, for privacy reasons. You see, our house is very “noticeable” for those who know and people have made it clear, not in a threatening way, we think, that they know where we live. Even our local butcher one day out of the blue announced “I used to live in that house you now live in!” recounting the rooms and garden in perfect detail.

But the kitchen was the ultimate compromise, and we knew that from first laying eyes on the space. The property has been extended we deduce twice in its lifetime… and the most recent extension is where the love-hate relationship stems from: the kitchen in a pokey, Seventies extension out the back. Aside from the sole bathroom, it’s the smallest room in the property though the one used the most, with the most stuff packed in. Go figure.

Oh, the feeling is mutual though: the kitchen doesn’t suit us and we don’t suit it. There’s no love lost in this ongoing battle. We hate its galley-style dimensions as we can very rarely cook together –– it requires a carefully-choreographed dance to avoid arguments and, quite literally, knives in backs. We hate how it’s devoid of ventilation, lacks design, storage and detail. We hate the way the electronics are like a Sphinx’s riddle to understand, seemingly installed back-to-front.

The oven, dishwasher and washing machine, each probably a decade old when we moved in, all packed up like clockwork. One, two, three, each after the other needing replacement. Hate that. It only had a tiny under-counter fridge when we moved in, which - obviously - was not enough for what we do so family kindly gifted a standalone fridge as a housewarming gift, which gobbled an entire corner.

We hate that, within the first year, we ran out of cupboard centimetres for all the tools and equipment we need –– not because we hoard, but because we work in food and recipe development. So, another sacrifice of space meant investing in a freestanding metal storage unit. We hate that we then exhausted all floor or counter space so had to work upwards, adding shelving on every available wall just so “stuff” had a “place”. Then, that avenue ran out and now we hate that we’re at a dead end: there’s nowhere further to go.

We’ve developed hundreds of recipes from here over the five years and written a book solely in this kitchen and none other… but finding the strength to develop any more within the space is a stretch and we worry the hate is starting to seep into our content and poison it.

Pain-de-me & ‘Love Island’, Kitchen Edition

Like most, the pandemic truly tested us. Our patience, our finances, our WiFi speed and waistlines. It threatened our physical and mental health, our relationship and totally overtook our home. Confined within four super thick walls, we needed to pivot our content or risk being rendered redundant. We embraced Instagram Lives, online cook-alongs, digital demos and so many cocktail shake-a-longs. Broadcasting from our kitchen or dining room, trying to frame the shot to avoid showing any of the chaos off-camera. It was de rigueur, a necessity in keeping the roof over our heads when every cent of income was lost.

A saviour to have our own safe space and privacy to keep the wheels on the track, but it really shone a light on the failings of the space, too. For example, a silly but real realisation was that, within our peers who were also creating engaging food content to communicate with audiences in lockdown, one thing was evident: those who had a lovely, expansive, marble-topped kitchen island excelled. They had a dedicated space to broadcast, with the kitchen perfectly positioned (and usually blurred) as the backdrop. Ideal, but not an everyday thing –– a luxury. We would have given anything to have that kind of a kitchen, as it would have made everything easier. We needed to be unbelievably creative, clever, clean and flexible to make our space work for us.

By the end of lockdown number 862 in 2021, weary from battle, the kitchen became so unworkable we started to despise cooking in it. We still mostly do, do you feel the same about yours? We pep talk ourselves into going in, like infantry psyching themselves to march back into the trenches. The more we cook in it the worse the frustration gets, but the less we cook in it - in a self-sabotaging act of avoidance - the more ludicrous it gets that we’re limiting ourselves from using what’s essential in our personal and professional lives.

Prospect of Kitchens Future –– So, Move?

Solid thinking and a necessary argument. Excuses abound but we’re firmly part of generation rent. The cohort thrust into the world of work in the throes of a global financial crisis expected to intern and accept zero hours contracts for a good part of our twenties. The same cohort in their thirties now navigating the waters of a simultaneous housing and cost of living crises out the back-end of a pandemic with a war on the other side of the continent.

Home ownership, for our situation, is a distant goal, in ways due to housing stock but also because we’ve been self-employed for six years –– and still are 50% self-employed (Russell as many of you know has now gone back to full-time work). In our business’ five year life-span so far almost half of that was spent enduring a two-year pandemic which arrived juuuust as we could breath and started finding success. Our income has been so turbulent, so inconsistent and so in flux we’d be the belly laugh a mortgage lender would welcome just to get them through the day.

We both looked at one another in the eye when we viewed our current place and, unspoken, agreed it was a yes to taking it. But in that same unspoken communication our hearts simultaneously sunk because we both knew the kitchen was the ultimate compromise, and five years in a war still rages across frequent battles. If we owned our property it would be the first thing renovated: gutted, extended and overhauled. Every detail dictated to our needs, made-to-measure like couture. When food is your world, your job, your livelihood, and still - just about - your passion even after it becomes the day job, you harbour dreams of your “perfect kitchen”. A functional, highly personalised space that fits your needs and fills your heart, both a perfectly-formed workspace and a ‘heart’ of the home that rises to every occasion.

And this ain’t it. In these surrounds, that excitement and experimentation begins to feel like forced labour, stifling our creativity often before it’s had a chance to flourish. Hate is a loaded word. But, when it comes to this kitchen - and some kitchens of our past - it sums it up succinctly. Yet, we can’t ignore all that we’ve extracted and produced from it.

Often when penning personal essays like these a voice in our heads bays us to have a proper conclusion. “Round it up in a neat way with perspective and clarity of mind, maybe some food for thought as a take-away,” our self-Editors in our heads suggest. But this is not one of them. This isn’t a parable, a passing on of knowledge from us to you of how we ascended or broke through struggle to reach ethereal nirvana. This is just a sounding board for frustration, a wallowing in self-pity at something that’s not in the least pitiful at all but feels like a constant sore. Maybe you feel the same about your kitchen, and maybe every so often you can taste the distain in the dishes it delivers.

Thanks for reading. Now, sorry to say, we’re off to get a take-away.