Today has been filled with baking. I have mincemeat (as in mince pie filling) fermenting in one bowl, Christmas cake goodies soaking in another, Cranberry jam cooling in a jar and two fruit-cakes baked (one for us and one for Mark’s father) and I’m thoroughly exhausted and very pleased with how everything smells. I have been an insistent, busy, harassed, driven and flustered chef, shoving things around noisily in the kitchen and savouring the smells of zesting citrus fruits, in between cursing like a sailor (‘c*ck*ng b*lls*ck’ when I spilled water everywhere) and commenting joyfully on how wonderful it will all be when we get to eat it.

I therefore present you with today’s advent calendar image: Kitchen Carnage.

I am a bit disappointed at how sedate my carnage is; I can only assume it is because of my deeply ingrained need to tidy up as I go along. For photographic purposes I wish I could exhibit some kind of appalling, untidy, wild, culinary creativity and heap peel and sugar and gratings and suchlike on every available surface. But this would be very wasteful, and impossible to cook in.

In fact, Gordon Ramsay in his Kitchen Nightmares is currently throwing an enormous tantrum and out-doing me entirely in the sailor’s curses stakes, because of the state of the kitchen that he’s dealing with in today’s show. Even Leonardo da Vinci in his kitchen notebooks, had words to say on the subject of kitchen cleanliness:

On the requirements of a good kitchen

Firstly, [one needs] a constant source of fire. Then a constant supply of water that boils then a floor that is forever clean. Then devices for cleaning, grinding, slicing, peeling and cutting. Then a device for keeping stinks and stenches away from the kitchen and ennobling it with a sweet and smokeless atmosphere. And then musick, for men work better and more happily where there is musick. And finally, a device for eliminating frogs from the barrels of drinking water.

In da Vinci’s time I expect frogs in the rain water were a common enough problem, but I’m certain Ramsay would blow his top were he to find them anywhere near any cooking-related water source.

I enjoy Gordon Ramsay immensely; his passion, seriousness and drive make engaging viewing and I like his flinty business mind and no-nonsense approach. The chef in me does balk however at both the price (39.99 in the last book shop I looked in) and the unwieldy size of his book, plus the knowledge that it wouldn’t last five minutes in my kitchen with its silver ink and ridiculously vain publishing style.

Contrastingly, my favourite recipe book is warped and stained with spillage.

Few things exist to celebrate culinary life as it really is lived; the messy, hot, dynamic, noisy, creative chaos that reigns in the kitchen. When talking at I Knit London about her choice to so carefully and artistically frame her photos of ‘Domesticity,’ Jane Brocket asked rhetorically, ‘why would I want to photograph the messy corners of my house?’ It is a poignant and important question, although it was meant humorously at the talk. Why would one concentrate on the difficult, the messy, the humiliating, the superficially unbeautiful, the mundane, the ordinary, the tedious and the boring aspects of domestic life?

One artist who delves precisely into these areas is Bobby Baker, a performance artist who deals a lot with feminist questions relating to identity, food, food-preparation, nurturing, memory, control and other related issues. I’m currently reading her aptly titled ‘Redeeming Features of everyday life,‘ and am finding it a very moving and incredible account of work and ideas. Her art is hilarious, agonising, inspiring and illuminating. I will review it in more detail when I finish the book; Marina Warner has written a brilliant essay that is well worth a read in the meantime.

I have a tutorial re: my PhD on The Domestic Soundscape tomorrow, and I’m going with my head full of Bobby Baker-inspired notions and my own collection of sound memories from the kitchen today;

*metal shelves in the oven banging on the sides as I move them up or down; it’s like a scrape and a bang, all at once.
*thick bubbling noise of cranberry jam in the pot.
*violent bang of the rugby ball on the back door, accompanied by gleeful, boyish shouting.
*relentless whirr of the gas boiler and hot water running through pipes.
*an exuberant clunk as the dishwasher tablet pops out of its compartment, mid-cycle.
*peace in the house when the television is off; the absence of noise, suddenly.
*soft, resistant noise of apples as they are grated.
*high pitchen, waxy scrape of zesting lemons.
*dull ding of a wooden spoon glancing off the edge of a mixing bowl.
*little cutting noises.
*thud of apple peel hitting the bottom of the compost bin.
*swirling, watery, soapy sounds of large items deep in the washing-up tub.