A kitchen with a window.

I have been living in a rental apartment for a long time now. Those of you who ever stayed in an apartment would know that kitchens in general are not spacious. And If you have a kitchen with a window, lady luck is smiling on you. Having a window in the kitchen depends on whether your kitchen shares its walls with neighboring apartments or not. Most of the kitchens are open to the living & dining area and you end up getting just one patio door that lights the entire kitchen, dining & living. So, when I moved into an apartment that had a window in the kitchen, dining & a patio window in the living I was thrilled.(Its got windows in the bathroom too! Cool!)

I have been cooking in a windowless kitchen for 6 years. For 6 years I did not realize how important it was to have a window in the kitchen. Maybe since people here bake or throw a salad or sandwich together or barbecue most of the time, they do not feel the importance of having a window to let (a) light in and (b) smoke out. Our cooking requires us to bring oil close to a boiling point and splutter all condiments in it. And don’t even talk about deep frying. For 6 years I must have made "Bakoda" (not the north Indian pakora) or deep fried "Appalam" 3 or 4 times. The first time we did deep frying and went out for shopping, we came back to a home smelling of oil and bakoda. And don’t even thing about cooking before going to work. You are probably going to smell of what you cooked.

Turning my attention to the new kitchen now - one word, "WOW"! My husband is sensitive to irritating smell from the kitchen (sautéing red chillies, green chillies etc) and used to cough a lot in the old aptmt. New one, I have not heard him cough one day. The window takes care of it! In the mornings as soon as I get up, I open the window slats and beautiful sun rays come streaming in and light up the granite counter tops of my new kitchen. Granite counter top. Another WOW, so easy to clean though difficult to spot dirt. But then that’s a nice thing right?

Right from the time I went to the new kitchen, I seem to be cooking more often and my creativity in the kitchen is flowing. I feel that its mainly because of the windows. Ladies (and men who cook), we need windows in the kitchen!