The "kitchenless" house

Give up my kitchen? NEVER!


Okay, maybe that was a bit too dramatic. I've read articles about places going kitchenless; both apartments and full fledged houses. It doesn't work for me. While I don't reside in the kitchen, it is of importance to me. Maybe this is connected to a lifetime of cooking. My father was a professional chef and even served 2 tours in the U.S. Army as a cook. Cooking is in my blood...my DNA. By the age of 5 I was familiar with some basics, such as how to fry an egg, both sunnyside up and over easy. Pizza and bread making were learned soon after.

It's not that I prepare a whole lot of big meals; but, I do use the space daily. My stove and me, we have a history!

All that to the side, I know microwave and take out/order and dining out are a way of life for many. If someone doesn't want a kitchen that's okay by me, just let me have mine.


Maybe we as a people should have seen this coming back when home designs began going to the open floor plan where the kitchen and living room were an openish space, no high walls, just a counter top level wall separating them.

Does a home without a kitchen and up having a spare room for unwelcome guests?

Un huh. She make sense, but I'm emotionally attached to the kitchen.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I can't live without a kitchen......I'm old and we still gather in the kitchen. My granddaughter loves the big kitchen table because we sit around And talk about our days and anyhing else that strikes our fancy..

I've been unable to make meals on a regular basis because I'm recovering from 4 disc compression fractures....my back pain is crippling. But I plan to start back as soon as I can.

My other concern about relying on carry out is the quality of the food. It's worse than just tasting terrible, it makes you sick. Im not sure why so many of the national chains pass out spoiled food, maybe because we live in Annapolis and we have tourists, and legislators and tons of federal, state, county and city employees the chains don't care about sanitation or taste.

I will never give up my kitchen.

I use my kitchen daily too Sturgis. I wasn't meaning that anyone should get rid of them altogether. More that they could be put back into it's proper priority as far as it's importance.

Homes going to an open floor plan (which I despise) didn't have anything to do with kitchens becoming more or less important.

I believe it was truly a thing we were "told" we wanted by builders who were wanting to cut costs by leaving out a wall or 2.

Just as people are told what fashions they are supposed to want from year to year, by providing only what the fashion industry wants us to buy.

I worked some temp jobs as a new home hostess for awhile, on weekends. There was one house I went to often. The builder of the community would come in and out, as various marketing materials were kept there, among other things he needed. We were talking one day, and he asked me my opinion on the homes he was building, in general. I told him a few of the features I liked, but also said I really didn't like that all the new homes being built were the open floor plan, and I thought the kitchen should be a separate room. I said if I bought that house the first thing I'd do was put up a wall , even a half wall, at a particular area, to separate out the kitchen from the living room. He pointed out to me a weight bearing column and said that's where the wall would go. It was then I realized, and blurted out, that this open plan was because it saved them quite a bit in building expense, didn't it? He looked taken aback for a second, then kinda chagrined way saying something like "Well, yeah, you could say that."

Unless you have OCD, that model home perfect kitchen that can be seen from all over the house is at some point, or often, going to have dishes in the sink, open cereal boxes and other stuff all over the counter, not to mention cooking odors, and grease from cooking spreading more easily all over the house, rather than being much more contained in a smaller area. People spend a lot of money to make the room(s) next to the kitchen look all designer and sophisticated, then ruin the effect by making themselves and everyone that comes in the house stare at what is essentially a work area, messes, and refrigerator art.

Full kitchens with all the bells and whistles became popular not because people where asking for them. It was because the kitchen is a real money maker for builders. It's the room with all the appliances, expensive countertops, with the added attraction of it all sitting right out in the open.
No other room in your typical home has as much money tied up in it, by a long shot.

That expensive room with no walls is like the fantasy of a wedding. Neither were common until relatively recently. People have been sold this idea that they will constantly be in the kitchen, cooking paella and quaffing wine while wearing a designer caftan, while laughing and bonding and **** with their guests. Like they couldn't not be in their company for the time it took to get the meal out, and like everyone is going to enjoy watching the cook, and standing around. Ditto with the fantasy these kitchens someone equals family. It's all marketing.

Not saying a kitchen....actually I suppose kitchen area is more what I'm meaning, should be dark, dank and secluded. Not saying for some the room gives them great joy.
It's just not, in general a very cost effective room, when one looks at the amount of time working in it. For many people, having a kitchen area seems much more practical overall.

Personally, I use my microwave for heating leftovers up. That's about it.
I do cook breakfast, because I'm not about to leave the house before coffee and all that.
I'll cook dinners, but augmented with things that have already been prepared, even if that's just bagged salad.
On my stove, there is one burner I use 90% of the time. Sometimes I use a 2nd one at the same time.
As far as costs, when I look at the price of the things I buy to prepare at home, it just isn't significantly different per meal than if I had just bought it prepared or quasi prepared (I think I buy more quasi prepared stuff).

The other day, Wally wanted soup. He loves this soup I get from the hot soup bar at this local market. It's I think 7.99 a quart. I said "how about if I make it instead? He said fine.
I added it up after I made it, and between the broth, veg, noodle and meat, the quart of soup I made cost right around 6.99. Not to mention my time, the cooking gas, and clean up.

I know a lot of people eat badly, and they eat out a lot.
Geographically it might not be practical to go out to buy meals.
All kinds of other stuff too.

When you think about it though, I think a lot of people would do just as well with the basics tucked away in a corner. Maybe part of the reason we're so fat is we're got these big kitchens staring us in the face.

Then you gotta change where you buy your food. There's lots of good choices, including your local market.

Again, I never indicated that anyone should give up having a kitchen.

I have many places to shop, meat and vegetable contamination is rampant. All of our private butchers have been closed down because they can't compete. It sucks like a hoover, because we used to have so many sources...now we are clogged with chain restaurants that don't try to offer uncontaminated food because they rely on tourists.

And I don't have the time or money to shop in Mexico. I have to shop in Maryland.

I live in Austin Texas

In our 100+ year old house, the kitchen has doors that close between it and the dining room (that one swings, but it's got a latch) and a hall to the main front area. This contains cooking odors really, really well.

I think it really comes down to whether you use your oven, and how often. If you're just roasting a few vegetables, then you can use a toaster oven or a convection. But if you're making Thanksgiving dinner then of course you can't. I use the oven at least a half a dozen times per year to make chicken or turkey, so it's worth it to me to own one.

My folks eat at least one meal out every single day. But they still make Shabbos dinner and that's sometimes (not always) brisket or a turkey or chicken so they use the oven. But if they weren't making foods like that, they could absolutely forego an oven.

I noticed young people in big cities, like New York and DC , never use their kitchen. They prefer daily shopping usually at delis or carryout. My daughter lives in DC and loves to cook. Her friends love that.

As I get older, my food prep time is less and not so complicated. But I think of resale value so I would never dismantle or downsize it.

Good points jes, and the kind of comments I was looking for. Not that some of them agree with my points, but because it invites discussion.

Yes, re holding cooking odors and related cooking airborne particles that will spread over and dirty up other parts of the house.

I found your remark about it being worth having a full kitchen, because of the oven, curious. You use the oven approx 6 times a year, out of 365 days? Why not just buy a rotesserie chicken at the supermarket, or an already prepared turkey? Or cook it in a large toaster oven?


That reminds me of an old episode of Car Talk. The husband obviously wanted Click and Clack to side with him because he wanted to buy a big SUV, which the wife was oppossed to. When asked why he wanted a vehicle that was cumbersome, guzzled gas, etc. he said "because we go camping twice a year." When asked why didn't he just rent a SUV twice a year with the savings of having a smaller car, it was clear he wasn't going to win them over.

I can see where keeping a kosher kitchen would envolve needing more space.
Do some observant Jews buy prepared already prepared Shobbos dinner, or is that considered abhorrent?

Again, throwing no shade. Sometimes I think we do things a certain way because that's how it was done within our memories.

Here's a brief history of kitchens. What stands out to me is that when people were able to, they chose to have the kitchen area separate from everything else.

For me it is worth it. RP and I both prefer the way I make turkey + chicken.

As for my folks, they have separate dishes (both everyday and for company) and separate flatware. All of this takes up a ton of space. And as for a pre-made Shabbos dinner, I don't think there is such a thing unless you're really, really elderly (and people who are more observant than my folks wouldn't turn on a porch light for a delivery person and they wouldn't start a stove or oven, etc if that person was caught in traffic). It's an untapped market: Oyber Eats.

Interesting business idea. I wonder if there would be a market for that? Would it be permissible as far as the Torah?

So, all the meals for Shabbat have to be prepared and ready before sunset Friday night, right? So a Jew could deliver the food on Friday before Sunset, but if the family had preordered for Saturday, a goy would have to deliver. Would that even be acceptable. Can a Jew read an incoming text message on a Saturday? The meal could be delivered and texted, would the Jew be allowed to just open the door to like, check the weather or something, and be delighted that food was there?

In my area, when someone buys a preexisting house, they just love to tear out the kitchen and start over. Seems they budget for it as part of buying a house.

It's not just young people who don't use their kitchens though. My friend, who I'm thinking of buying that land with, never had much use for a kitchen.

He lived in NYC, and said that as far as he was concerned, the kitchen was purely ornamental. It never got dirty, because it never got used. If you live in a city, not even necessarily a big one, there's many options to pick up meals on the way to, and from work.

It doesn't have to be from chain places, or fast food.
When I worked still, and got tired of the Sunday cooking day (which I did enjoy for quite a while), I would call any number of actual sit down restaurants that served great food, and order a couple of meals about 1/2 hour before leaving work, and pick them up on the way home. No cooking, no cleanup...besides a couple of glasses and cutlery.

Actually going through a fast food place is just as, if not more expensive than getting food from a decent nice restaurant. I'd walk in, the food would be waiting, I'd go home.

I do the same thing now, and for some places it's even cheaper, as I'll buy discounted gift cards online that people didn't want. You can get them for places you go to anyway for 10% to 25% off and more.

I h3ar ya. I find your argument compelling to those like millenials. However, you sound like youve been trqpped in the kitchen. (Lie down on the couch and tell Dr F why you hate your mother).
Weve always shqred cooking and since each of us hd careers that took us aall over the place, e looked foroward to cooking in the cave. Qe have spent a bit of cash on our kitchen and weve redone it twice in 30 yeqrs. We still eat out a lot, but the midnite snacks and BS sessions, the impromptu dinners, Planned family events etc, all need a kitchen.

Ill be reading her report and commenting, however a deeper, more objective look may show that the kitchen IS the heart of the home.
Sounds too "Brave New World--ish"

weve already rentd aprtment with"kitchenettes" but they alwy hqd a spce with a frig/freezer, stove/nuke a sink and storage for tool and utensil.
Weve had em relly mll but identifiable as "kitchen" I could thrive with such a rig but I think we would need the area defined and outfitted so.
What I think wed add would be a TV (we put built in sound and tv in our last redo.

I'm not sure. I know that if you're very strict, you're not supposed to light a fire, and that's been interpreted as not turning on an oven or a light switch. Not sure if microwaves are included but they may be.

when my dad made his brief escape from the retirement home, he bought a giant convection toaster oven. when he returned to the Chateau, he sent us that toaster oven. Haven't used the big oven in the house since - other than for storage - which is good since my kitchen is storage deficient. Giant, but stupidly laid out - next homeowner can deal with it.

I've done some big-ass roasts in that toaster oven.

Thanks for the heart felt laugh Doc.

Naw, I've never felt trapped in a kitchen. As far as my mom, she was an uninspired, ok I'll say it, gawd awful cook.
To be frank, cooking has always come naturally to me. I haven't had more than a few failures. I still cook, just on a curtailed and changed level.

I guess my title here is misleading. I was just taking it from the article, which in fact isn't presenting the belief or practicalities of actually living somewhere with no "kitchen like" facilities.

Would I get rid of the kitchen I have? No. That would be stupid.
If I were designing a house, would the layout of the meal prep area look different? Yep. If it was a single family house, I'd delegate the same square footage for a kitchen, but only actually utilize a small portion of it. The rest of the space would be used for something else. Something like an office, sanctuary/meditation room/sacred spot, hobby or etc.

Like ebeth said, when I leave, let the new owner deal with it. I'd take something off the price for an allowance to knock down whatever walls/barriers separating the kitchen area and extra space, and let them put in the appliances they want.

A friend in Mexico was a realtor in the US. The stories he would tell of buyers and the fuss they would make over the layout of the kitchen or bathrooms, when they had already made it known they were going to remodel all those room anyway. Really, don't think for a minute someone moving into what you're selling is going to have the same tastes as you.
When he was selling his house long distance, I happened to be there listening to Face Times with his realtor friend who was handling it. The most ridiculous things were being debated, such as "they don't like the paint in the kitchen." Well, here's a f*cing bucket of paint and a brush. I mean, seriously.

Re being too Brave New World, actually not having as big, or a minimalist take on the food prep area is actually more Sweeny Todd or Jack the Ripper-ish.
From what I understand, tenements in London didn't even have kitchens many times, hence all those meat pie shops.

I don't have a memory of this, but when I was born we had 3 different arms of our family living in one house. Each family had it's own palour and bedrooms upstairs, half of the downstairs was part of the business, and the other half was a common/communal kitchen.

Don't know how the labor and expense was shared, as I was the 4th child, and my aunt and uncle had one child. Plus Grandma, who never set food in the kitchen, and had her food taken up to her so she could watch "her stories".

I think the concept of Heart & Soul came from the era where the kitchen was the area of the house that had heat, plus if you weren't rich it was probably the common room where everything happened, not just cooking and eating. My mother says that where the bathtub was in their walkup, and she hated the lack of privacy.

If the kitchen is the heart and soul, why did we invent "family rooms"?

From reading the history of kitchens in the house, it seems that whenever people got enough money to not have the kitchen as the main/only room, they separated it out to another room, or even floor of the house or building.

It's just not what the majority writing here remember as being our personal experience, so it seems a little strange.