A few weeks ago my microwave oven failed to function, and I had to face the fact that I needed a replacement. Shopping in the kitchen department of an electric supermarket, I found a microwave that met my requirements. Looking around the store, I realized that my stove was of ancient origin too, and it seemed practical to buy one while I was in this kitchen heaven.
A few days later, the new equipment arrived. For a brief moment, I had a fantasy that I was the mistress of one of the glamorous kitchens so often displayed in the media. That fantasy soon faded, but I did enjoy the shiny black additions to my kitchen.
Since cooking is not one of my passions and I rarely make succulent roasts in the oven nor do I any longer bake cookies for my grandchildren, over the years I have stored pots and pans in the lower part of the oven. As I continued to gaze in awe at my new appliances, I suddenly realized that I had failed to remove the pots and pans from my old oven before it was carted away!
Although pots and pans are not inexpensive, it was not the replacement cost that upset me. It was the sudden awareness that I was attached to those old friends. They had played an endearing role in life over the years. One of them went back to my time as a bride. One old pot had seen me through both success and failure as a cook -- held many a Thanksgiving turkey and just recently had presented a delicious apricot chicken at my home.
And that old frying pan (more fashionably called a saute pan today) had produced wonderful French toast to many overnight guests before they started to worry about calories. When I told my son about the lost pots, he wistfully asked if the pot that had cooked his favorite childhood food was gone -- it wasn't. Many of my pots and pans still remain. They weren't all stored in the oven. But those that are gone seem to have joined with all the other old friends that have disappeared from my life -- but leave poignant memories of times past.
