I just booked my airtickets for Calcutta.Finally after 6 long years i will be celebrating sarodiya utsav with my family.The month of october is packed with festivals and like all, the custom of giving and recieving gifts are important with bengalis.These days all kinds of wierd ideas are coming into my mind.I am always bad at giving gifts or should i say selecting "appropriate" gifts.And the toughest of all is giving gift to mom.Now my mom is kinda camera shy person.But she's an awesome cook and extremely passionate about it.Sometimes i feel she should have hosted Travel & Living's Hell's Kitchen show instead of Gordon Ramsey. I feel proud when people discuss my mom's cooking or they try those dishes back in their home.Well i think cooking came to me through my mom.I also like cooking and like her my philosophy about cooking is that cooking can be made easy through the use of the right cooking tools and a few tabletop necessities.But top of all, as she says, cooking is not only playing with flavours instead it's more about playing with senses.Mom's very demanding as far as cooking and kitchen is concerned.She always complains that she doesn't have a good kitchen.Dad, bhai and me never actually understood why exactly she's complaining.After all 15ft
/ 8ft size kitchen is not at all a small kitchen.But as the days passed and i developed a interest in cooking i came to realise that it's more about utilities and design than the area of a kitchen.Well now i understand that in order to attain certain level of culinary perfection you have to have a feeling and most importantly - "A Good Kitchen". After a long thinking i and dad decided to invest some of our savings into "mom's kitchen".Now that would be her "pujo gift". Like an expert invester i , dad and bhai are expecting mouth watering delicacies.Com'on we are investing our hard earned money into that...we have the right to get the return.. But the deal came with a condition, since my dad and bro are totally numb in this perrticular subject, i had to decide what all needs to be changed or modified in the kitchen.That of course has to be affirmed and passed by home minister of our home- My mom.And then it started a vicious cyle of "selection and rejection" .I was crawling all over the internet and searching local book shop to get manuals on kitchen designing.I forwarded few to my mom and according to me they were classy...few designs from scandinavian kitchen...few ideas from hell's kitchen show...few suggestions from local restuarants.But they all were rejected.Few days ago she sent me a catalog for a kitchen design and I immediately liked it. This kitchen goes more under the headings of "Less is more" , "highly personal", More "showcase", less "high end catalog". And, that said, it's a viable look. Glam meets function meets texture. There was no other image of the working part of the kitchen.But i thought, WOW! and I under-estimated my mom.
I like the simplicity of elements, but what I like more is the color white showin truth and strength, yet, restraint. I don't need any more evidence to prove that "less is more". Fewer, larger, shapes and forms will enlarge a space as opposed to many, smaller, pieces, door sizes, accessories, etc. This is not a good vs. bad evaluation, simply an observation and another way to design a kitchen within a tight budget. The look is simple and elegant, so that the individual pieces say something meaningful yet are linked together in other ways, perhaps in color or tone, if not style.
Here, my eye sees a variety of styles:
utility (Our Old Godrej refrigerator n the new LG grill)
rustic (Our Jabalpuria dark wood Furnitures)
glamour (re-arranged polished compartments n new white stone sink)
something hip/fun (Wrought iron chairs n dining table)
elegance/sophistication yet modern (paint on wall)
modern/sleek yet textural ( the old n in expensive sunmica floor)
contrast (floor and walls)
There are common threads among these elements which tie one disparate piece to another and it's fun looking for them. I'm actually pretty crazy about this kitchen, although I'd probably want to change the prints to something A BIT more personal....like few family photo frames. But we indians use lot of oil n spices in kitchen..Hope the electric chimney will do itz job and that the frames doesn't turn black ..Would like to remove those chiars and the dining table. I think wrought iron furniture would be a classy yet solid replacement.Have to look at the budget also.
One question that comes to mind is, what came first, or simultaneously? Was the flooring color picked first, knowing that those chairs would be used, which relate to the walls in terms of tone? Was the big picture seen from the start, or were pieces brought in, to build on the previous concept. How were the layers developed? It' also refreshing to see the use of large carpets in kitchen.We indians hardly use carpets in kitchen, so it would be a nice new experiment.
What do you think??
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