I’m visiting my parents this weekend.

For most twenty-somethings living in the city, a trip back to the parentals’ house in the ‘burbs is a groan-inducing event.

But, most twenty-somethings don’t have parents like mine.

I was blessed with the cool parents.

Me and my cool parents at a friend’s wedding

My house was the one everyone came to and sometimes I’d even come home to find my friends hanging with my parents without me.

My parents are just. Chill. Relaxed. Easy.

You can tell my mom was a hippie. She was too young to have been a real hippie, but she’s still a flower child. And my dad’s just… my dad. I don’t know. He’s comfortable. He claims he hates people but he’s warm and friendly and talkative. He calls himself a freak. And we affectionately call him one too.

My parents had the open door policy. Some of my friends would quite literally open the door of our beach house, run to the kitchen, grab a soda and run off to work.

And mom didn’t care who came over for dinner.

She didn’t say a word when a friend who was… er… feeling the effects of a mood altering substance… kept his sunglasses on through dinner. He really needed those Spaghetti and Meatballs. Mom just laughed. Dad just shook his head.

I’m lucky.

The only complaint I have in going to my parents, yes I get to hang out with them and have my mom’s home-cooked food, but, it is her food and her kitchen. Get out.

My mom is a true Italian woman. The kitchen is her domain.

Don’t try to help her clean up the dishes. Don’t try to help her prepare anything.

Out.

She has a system. She has her way.

(Mom and I are both Sagittarius – independent and stubborn. Poor dad).

Which is probably why for years my friends and family made fun of me for my lack of domestic skills. Domestically challenged. That was me.

I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t clean, I couldn’t do laundry.

I could bake though. My mom hates baking, so I always got that job.

Looking back, I wasn’t challenged, I was just barred from the kitchen!

Once I got my own kitchen, I was free! Tiny though the space is, it is mine. All mine. And I can make whatever I want, however I want. I can experiment. I can create. I can cook.

You need a level of freedom to cook.

I never could have made dinner in my mom’s kitchen, with her watching over my shoulder and telling me where things were. I spent 23 years of my life in that house, but she still would tell me where things were.

But now that I have my own kitchen with my own pots and my own ingredients, I cook up a storm. You have to feel comfortable and you have to accept the fact that you will probably burn something, or overcook something, or mistake the sugar for the salt at some point.

But in the privacy of your own itty bitty kitchen, no one needs to know but you.

And I think the small space even helped me. It’s not small, it’s efficient. Everything is within reach. Forgot to get the milk out to pour into your pudding that’s now bubbling on the stove? No problem. The fridge is a mere foot away. Disaster averted. Need another bowl because you underestimated just how much pasta you actually made? In the cabinet right over your head. No problem.

So, all you kitchen-challenged gals out there, have hope.

When you have your own itty bitty kitchen, you will find your inner domestic diva!