Baby, you’re a firework

By Esther Baird

First Published in the Chronicle & Transcript, Nov 3, 2021

We’ve been remodeling our kitchen since the dawn of time. Or, you know, July. Supply chains, container ships, backordered everything and all that excitement has been our reality. But for each decision we chose the most timeless option, the one unlikely to be dubbed ‘trendy’ in five years. We’re going with the theme of ‘never again’ and to that end, we chose a neutral palette. Plus, we’d just spent the past 12 years with pickled peach cabinets and counters. I see you mid-90s, and I loved you, but I’m also over you.

However, as we said farewell to the decor of our college days, I realized the one thing the peach had going for it, besides making me feel like I’d been dipped in vinegar, was that peach, obviously, was a color.

Our new kitchen was intentionally going to be pretty devoid of color and I began to panic.

I decided that perhaps the little desk area, where my laptop will be and where I will run the ship that is our household, should have a pop of color. I found a backsplash that brought in some of the blues of our island (the only color in the kitchen) with the white of everything else. Also, it was shaped like a spikey exploding firework! Boom! I’m making dinner! Shazam! I just ordered 25 trash stickers (why we can’t order more than 25 is a question I may die thinking about). Kapow!! I wrote a paragraph for this column in between making a grocery list. My little corner of the kitchen, dazzling and exciting and full of domestic power!

“Well, I mean, it’s not that the firework backsplash is bad, it’s very exciting and certainly you,” my Voice of Reason friend said. My husband and I had invited her over to help settle the backsplash debate given her sharp eye for design and the value she would surely place on being a good and, ahem, loyal friend.

She continued. “I do think it gives the kitchen a pop of color.”

I smiled triumphantly at my husband, who was voting for a white backsplash in all places, including my control center.

“Aha!” I fist pumped.

“But,” the VOR continued in a tone I knew all too well. It was the ‘but’ that meant somebody’s hopes and dreams were going to be dashed, and the odds were not ever in my favor. She looked at me and shrugged apologetically. “If you are going for timeless and not trendy, I’m just not totally sure…”

I’ll spare you the rest. Obviously, you will not be attending the Casa Baird Firework Spectacular in our kitchen.

But after four months of cooking and eating and (Dear God, never again!) making lunches in the basement at the wet bar, using a sink the size of a breath mint, I will make my own fireworks by simply being able to wash dishes and chop produce.

Clearly, I’m thankful we have a basement to use. But, making a giant chopped salad on a glorified card table, with no way to rinse things means… well it means I bought a lot of Costco bagged salads. A few times, I attempted to make foil packets for the grill, but you still have to put the raw meat in your foil packet. Ever work with raw meat over carpet with no easy way to quickly rinse off a cutting board? Ever have the foil rip and leak in your basement TV room? It’s a whole lot of badness, and often the point at which I’d flip out and call for a lifeline, by which I mean the Boxford Community Kitchen. We ate from them… a lot. My heart and soul, but most of all my sanity, are forever indebted to their extensive menu and gigantic portions.

And yes, I know a crockpot can be used in small spaces, just dump and go and all that jazz. But care to explain how I wash it? Many helpful people told me I could wash it in my bathtub. Um, I don’t have a bathtub in my basement. Do you? I also don’t have one on my main floor. And here’s a nugget of truth for you: I would rather dump a bag of salad onto the floor, stomp around on it, hand out forks, and call it dinner than carry a sauce-encrusted crockpot up two flights of stairs, across carpet, to soak it in my tub, which incidentally is the only place I can relax these days since my living room has been off limits due to its proximity to the kitchen.

But Regular Reader, I’ve spared you my thoughts until there was a happy ending. By the time you read this I should be piloting the mothership from a finished kitchen with appliances and countertops and a sink large enough to wash a pot, or a pan, or both if I’m so inspired.

And that’s reason enough to cue the fireworks!