# My kitchen in New York[ | ]
Leem, soojeong
Since I have spent many times in my kitchen, I have been attached to my kitchen in my house and also in New York most. My kitchen reminds me of my mother's kitchen's atmosphere and my mom’s special recipes in Korea. It always gives some comfort and warmth touching my nostalgic emotion. For that reason, especially when I am in trouble or feel lonely, I escape to my kitchen and hide myself in the corner of the table holding some downy cushions. Also cooking some Korean dishes in a kitchen is the one of the best ways of the therapy for my cruel homesick in a foreign city. While I sweat a lot cooking spicy broth noodle next to the hot oven, I can forget almost all my worries. About two years from now in my mom’s kitchen in Korea, I will definitely miss my New York kitchen as much as now I am missing my mom's kitchen in the NY apartment.
My house is one bedroom apartment in front of the Hudson River. The building is well organized, neat and clean as well. The reason why I chose this apartment was that the outside of the building color is very gorgeous gray exactly that I crazy about. Inside my apartment seems a small temple on the low hill in the winter. Even though I sweated a lot in the summer temperature, unconsciously I felt like sitting in the dry and cold wind. I don’t know why, but probably the very white wall all over the house makes me feel like that. It looks pretty much dry like a widow who has lived alone for over ten years. The wooden floor in the living room and bedroom is very shiny, but every time it makes silly noise even though when I am in very serious or romantic mood. It is helpful for me though. Since I currently don't want to be drunken by my New York life, the noise cynically wakes me up all the time like a warning alarm. By the way to reach my kitchen from the door, I have to pass very long, narrow and dark aisle. Actually it's not that so long as the Lincoln Tunnel, but whenever I come back home, I feel like that I pass the long transition to wholly make myself comfortable. When I shut the front door after coming back home, I give a sigh of relief standing against the door for a second. In the end of the aisle is a square entry for the kitchen which I call my rectangle cave. Many times my guest misunderstood it as another bedroom until they notice that there is an oven and a friger. They always gave me a compliment saying that"what a nice bedroom!!" Um..Um.. It is my kitchen. I am not sure why they thought like that, but I guess that since I have spent a lot of time there watching T.V and having some coffee with my friends, they could feel some smell and temperature of mine in the kitchen like my bedroom. Since I have preferred and felt proud of the Asian style much more since I came to New York, I have decorated my kitchen in the very Asian way. I like to collect the many kind of dishes, so I installed them at the white shelves in the right corner of the kitchen. My T.V is on the corner of the L shape sink. It's very small, cute and white like a piece of tofu. All of the cupboard and sink are made of wood, and a friger and an oven are both ivory color and so are the floor tiles. My kitchen looks very natural having some point color touch. All the times, it gives off the Korean incense smell murmuring that 'here is occupied by the Asian'. Finally there is a very special pale ivory table on the ivory carpet. It is two meters long and very low for having dinner sitting on the floor. The quarter of the kitchen is filled by that table. When I invited my foreign friends, they said that they liked and understood the Asian manner very much, but about fifteen minutes later, I could read their leg's pain on their face. I badly enjoyed watching their painful reaction. On the long table there is a big pink Peony flower in the green Chinese vase and bamboo trays are on the both sides. The burning reddish Chinese lamp called my guest's attention all the times. Every in the morning I have hot milk coffee there, and every sleepless night, I force myself to fall in sleep turning on T.V next to the table. Sometimes it was raining outside, I drank sitting on the tile floor shrinking my back and smelling wet ground and grass. I even felt more comfortable when I fell in sleep in the kitchen after a long conversation with my Korean wine or sake. Therefore my table has seen all my face such as a sleepy and drunken face and even unwashed face.
If my house is desert, my kitchen is oasis in the middle of desert. Since I've just accepted the white, beige and gray color in the living room and bedroom, they look like desert attracting me in somehow. However in the kitchen, I've been more tolerant for using color. There are adorable lovely pink, fresh mint green, multicolored strip cushions, if my house seems being in the fall, my kitchen always in the spring or summer. While the things in the house are quiet, exceptionally the kitchen things are very talkative. Therefore when I want to calm down myself or ruminate my last steps,I stay in my living room and bedroom, but when I want to feel high or plan some for the future, I definitely enjoy staying at my kitchen. Now a days I try to look ahead and feel lively, so I spend more time in my colorful kitchen planning my vivid tomorrow in New York.
하도 오래 전에 써서 어디가 틀린지도 잘모르겠다...틀린곳은 많은데 느낌이 많이 나쁘지 않으니 건드리지 말라고해서 그냥 두었다..TJ님 시간 되시면..좀 고쳐 주세요..-- Suitall 2004-6-14 9:36 am
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