The Farmhouse Kitchen: Delightful Surprises

When you live in a 130-year-old farmhouse you expect a few surprises. I remember the day that we found a hidey-hole way up at the top of the wall in our hallway. Ten years — that’s how long we’d lived in our house when we found the thing. The stark realization that we walk around our house with our heads just dangling off our shoulders wasn’t lost on us, because neither of us had ever even paid attention. We discovered that we have a fully-floored closet, way up high, in the hall. It takes a tall ladder to get to it. The thing is deep enough to store and lose all kinds of treasures. But that’s a story for another day.

Surprises can come to you in all kinds of ways. I love walking through the yard in the spring and being surprised to see flowers that I didn’t plant pop up everywhere. Garden surprises are my favorite. Some surprises take your breath away. I was surprised when my mom died unexpectedly four years ago. I was surprised (and mortified) at all the paperwork I had to go through to settle her affairs, and I was surprised at some of the treasures I found along the way. She kept everything. My heart got heavy sometimes. One particular night when I was just on the verge of tears, I found a small box tucked inside a bigger box, and in that small box was stash of recipes that I’d never seen. None were spectacular or 5-star restaurant quality, and lord knows Julia Child would scoff at my find, but the delight of it was that some of them were in her handwriting. Surprises and treasures. I went to bed smiling that night.

When we step into the month of May, we are in the deep throws of spring, and at the threshold of summer. Use this month to welcome surprises, even ones that might knock your knees out from under you for a little bit — you never know what kinds of blessings and treasures you might find among the chaos.

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