The Ritual Effect

On the third installment of After Thoughts, I explore how the wish for a bigger kitchen relates to cooking, reading and rituals. A nod to The Ritual Effect.

A friend recommended a book, I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen by Kate Strickler. From the title and synopsis, it felt like a book I would love. I opened it and read a few pages of the introduction – I consciously give books a try nowadays, rather than committing from the moment I borrow the title. 

Kate talks about having a good life but then opening social media – seeing an influencer and thinking about the lack in her own or learning about a tragedy somewhere in the world and being grateful for what she has.

This did not vibe with me. 

I left social media a while back. While I still have accounts on Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky, I rarely visit them. In the early months of motherhood, I used to spend time doom scrolling as a distraction but it, not surprisingly, left me dissatisfied, unhappy and frustrated. I had been working hard for years before that to unlink the likes, shares and comments on my post from the worth of my work to me. Motherhood hit extra hard. Suddenly, all the work I had put in felt for naught because there was a completely different context that I had landed in. I had to start over, with the knowledge that I had done this before. I am in the stage where I don’t want to hear another person’s account of how they got out of it because it involves going deep into how they felt. 

When I wrote about The Ritual Effect, I noted that reading itself is a ritual for me. This means protecting how I feel when I do it. And definitely don’t want to feel like revisiting certain circumstances when I am over them. When I have already intentionally stepped away from social media, it felt jarring to re-enter that lens through someone else’s narrative. Even if they’re critiquing it. I have worked hard to quiet that frequency and I do not want to reintroduce it recreationally.

I Just wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen drew me because of the title. As I closed this book, I realized that my desire for a bigger kitchen has nothing to do with other people’s photos of their kitchens. It’s purely so that I have more space to cook in. 

I spend a lot more time in the kitchen than I ever did before. Keeping the counter clear can be a lot sometimes when I’m cooking. There is a baby food tray from her high chair that doesn’t fit in my dishwasher and is constantly in a state of use, mess or to be cleaned or put away (mostly not this one).

I dream of a bigger kitchen so that cooking can be smoother for me. It is only now that I am cooking for my daughter that I have started to love cooking. I find myself thinking of Nani, my maternal grandmother, who was the queen of the kitchen when I was growing up. When I cook chicken biryani, I remember the sizzle of ghee and onion, exactly how it used to be in my childhood years. My energy fluctuates though. There are days I want to be in the kitchen and execute a more involved recipe and then there are days when I would rather just dump the ingredients and let them cook themselves. This reminded me of The Ritual Effect. Michael Norton had talked about cooking. I remember his example of cake mixes – how adding just water and baking wasn’t a good product and the feedback from customers was that they wanted to do more than just that. So, adding in eggs and oil/butter to the mix increased satisfaction with the cake mix. It felt like a labour of love.

I see now how cooking is a ritual too. Not all the recipes I make, just some of them. Those that bring back memories of childhood, those that I have discovered myself. I have ownership of my meal plans like never before. I know my go-to meals and those that bring me comfort. A few months ago, I told my husband that I was going to get into cooking. He told me that I was already doing it.

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One day, I will pick up a book about cooking in the home. I have two on my TBR now that I know what I am looking for when I wish for a bigger kitchen – Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen is a 1988 collection of essays by American novelist and food writer Laurie Colwin and An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by writer and cook Tamar Adler. Aren’t the covers just gorgeous?

There are writers who write about cooking and food and I am excited to discover their thinking and what I can bring to mine.

My current kitchen has served me well for five years. I don’t wish for a bigger kitchen because someone else has one. I wish for one that fits my cooking rhythms today.

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What’s a book whose approach didn’t resonate with you? Did you keep reading?