Two things I love about my kitchen

This is my kitchen counter, I love it. It’s a 2″ thick slab of bardiglio marble that we brought with us from Cararra. It’s polished on one side but the surface was straight from the big cutting machine so it undulates a bit. The piece is a scrap that was left over from the memorial fountain that Matthew carved for Angelo Frammartino in Caulonia. The colour has darkened over time as we’ve used it to kneed bread and roll out pie dough and biscuits. It’s scarred from the cutting of myriad things and I have written my biscuit recipe on the edge with wax pencil.  Every time I use it, even every time I look at it I find a rich surface full of memories that reflects the story of our family and our connections to different parts of Italy.

Another thing that I love in my kitchen is the cutting board. This is a slab of olive wood that was left over from a spiral stair case that Matthew made for a cabin belonging to the family whose house we
lived under while I was pregnant with Robin Kay.
The edge is uneven as it’s the exterior of the tree itself with a knot on the leading edge. It’s a beautiful golden-red wood that’s perfect for any cutting or slicing and brings back memories of that tiny apartment under the mill and my pregnant belly full of kicking baby. This chunk of wood has trailed along with us for the last 4 years and should last for many, many more.

My kitchen looks nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in a magazine but I love these rich, worn materials that work perfectly for what we need and carry the story of our family in their luminous surfaces.