How do you Cultivate Creativity in the Kitchen?
When we were deciding the title and cover design for my book, My Macaroni Sings, I got feedback that it sounded like a cookbook. This helped me decide the subtitle, Your Guide to Cultivating Creativity in Children.Yet, one of the 12 categories of creative experiences in the book is chapter 13, “Culinary Arts.” The term refers to the art of preparing, cooking, presenting, and serving food. It is about being mindful in all facets, among other practices. This month I want to focus on intentionally cultivating creativity in the kitchen—for adults. I hope you will be inspired to reimagine the places and spaces of your kitchen, feel pulled back into the magic of unique, personal expression, and pause to practice creativity in your kitchen in ways that will delight and nourish not just your body, but your heart and mind as well. Then I have a favor to ask. More on that at the end.
Recently I was selecting a wedding gift for my nephew. He and his fiancé had their registry carefully curated. I kept returning to the kitchen items inspired by knowing they are both creative young individuals and the festive turquoise colors in their selections. Shelby studied photography in college and Nick is naturally gifted in music. I wanted to honor the wishes on their registry and selected their dishes to send. I also wanted to personalize a gift and maybe spark ideas about the creative possibilities for the ambiance of kitchens in life. I began to engage in some creative reverie.
First, I went to my stash of quotes about the kitchen which I have collected for years. I read them again. I was compelled to take out my worksheet on the seven practices for cultivating creativity from my book. I began weaving together ideas of how to impart to the soon-to-be newlyweds a vision of using the space and place of the kitchen to intentionally cultivate creativity. I ended up selecting one quote for each of the PICASSO-7 practices. This was not easy as there were several quotes that mapped to each practice, and I had to choose just one for the sake of space. That is for all but one. I discovered there were very few quotes about play. I’ll say more about that later. Once I decided on the best ones for them, I printed them on beautiful paper and used a colorful fashion clipboard to present them in lieu of a frame. The quotes matched to the seven practices are shown below.
I further customized my gift by imagining their table setting and plates with fun napkins and napkin rings. I decided to play by tie-dyeing napkins to match their dishes. I created a heart shaped design in each napkin using rubber bands, then poured on a vibrant turquoise dye–their color of choice. I splashed accents of red and orange around the heart to complement roses on their dishes. After the dye soaked for the needed time, I washed, dried, and ironed them. I purchased fun napkin rings that carried a motif similar to their wedding invitation. I pulled the napkins into the rings and carefully arranged them with tissue paper in a box. (In case you want to try tie-dye, the whys and how-tos are included in My Macaroni Sings, chapter 10, “Painting and Printmaking.”)
I wrapped my personalized gifts and sent them off. As I looked back, here is what I’ve been contemplating. There were not any quotes that mentioned play—the first of the PICASSO seven practices. The one I used above infers play. Since then, I have googled more quotes and there still is not mention of play. I have been discussing play as a practice in the kitchen with friends. Some say there is an underlying sense of play that is understood in deciding to bake or try new recipes. Others said kitchens remind them of chores of meal preparation, tight deadlines, and dishes to clean up. Kids think of cooking and baking as play; adults don’t use the term play much. And about the title of my book? “My macaroni sings” is quote from my grandchildren that speaks to “play” and fun at our table. Still, I want to explore this more.
What do you think?
Will you send me a note or quote about how you intentionally cultivate creativity in your kitchen? I’d like to learn how and when PLAY factors into your kitchen, or reasons it does not. If you want more details and definitions of the PICASSO seven practices, see my March 2024 blog post, or read chapter 2 in My Macaroni Sings. Send me an email me at jill@jillvershum.com Thank you. I’ll let you know what I find out.
