I'm Bonnie. I cook in a yellow kitchen in Makersville, Connecticut, in the same house I've kept for going on twelve years.
People ask why there are never any photographs of me here. Harold liked a camera. I never did. He's been gone a few winters now.
So you'll see my hands, my counters, the garden out back — and you'll have to imagine the rest of me. I'm told I have a kind face. You'll just have to take my word for it.
I learned to cook for two late in life, and right when I'd gotten the hang of it, I found myself cooking for one. I never did learn the trick of one. So I keep making enough for the whole table. The chairs don't seem to mind, and there's always somebody glad to carry a plate home.
what this kitchen is for
A person ought to be fed. And there's always room for one more.
Nobody leaves my door empty. I believe in second helpings — the best part of a meal is the part you didn't think you had room for.
Everything here is real, tested in my own oven, and meant to be made. The recipes come from neighbors, from Harold's mother Georgia's index cards, from Dale at the butcher counter who saves me the cuts nobody else asks for. Some of them have stories. I'll tell you those too, if you let me. I do go on.
Pull up a chair. There's plenty.
— Bonnie