Comfort Kitchens
Or, How to Heat Up the Heart of the Home
Red formica countertops are an unexpected motif in my life. The kitchen of my childhood home, the President’s House at Amherst College, had them. I loved to sit upon them while I talked on the landline for hours, wrapping the phone chord around my wrist and arm. And the kitchen of my now home in the Hudson Valley has them, too. My kids sit upon them while they have a snack, chatting about their day. In neither case did I choose the red formica countertops. I think maybe they chose me.
When I first walked into my house on a bleak February day in 2021, I was stunned by the kitchen. Part of a 90s renovation, it stood out from the rest of the house — a farmhouse built in the 1830s. The kitchen was—and is—a riot of yellow formica cabinets, lower and upper, two veritable daisy fields of formica with the red counters sandwiched in between. But that red formica acted on me with some Proustian magic. I knew I was home.
