Banana Yoshimoto on dirty kitchens

The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White tile catching the light (ting! ting!).

I like even incredibly dirty kitchens to distraction - vegetable droppings all over the floor, so dirty your slippers turn black on the bottom. Strangely, it's better if this kind of kitchen is large. I lean up against the silver door of a towering, giant refrigerator stocked with enough food to get through winter. When I raise my eyes from the oil-spattered gas burner and the rusty kitchen knife, outside the window the stars are glittering, lonely.

Yoshimoto, B. in Foulston, J. (2006).The Virago Book of Food: The Joy of Eating. Virago: London.