As a new bride, with my first home, and my very own kitchen full of possibilities, I insisted on having 8 matching place settings worth of flatware. The reason this was so important to me was because I wanted the organization and neatness in my home. My mother and grandmother have always had a hodgepodge of silverware drawers in their kitchens. The kind where a drawer won’t open because of a potato masher. The disorganized kind that stressed me out. So my kitchen wasn’t going to be anything like that.
I quickly learned that 8 forks, isn’t enough if you invite 10 people over. And I also couldn’t do a quick potato mash if I didn’t have a potato masher in my kitchen. All the while thinking “maybe I should buy more place settings.”
My grandma’s silverware drawer is the United Nations. It is the melting pot. The drawer is extra deep, and it holds probably close to 75 forks.
After my son was born, we also did a foster care placement, and having two one year old boys, made me realize how fast dishes got dirty. And inevitably, some were thrown away by a well meaning toddler, just cleaning up after himself.
So I had to get an odd set of forks just to bump my numbers back up. Now, nothing matched. And after having two baby boys, I realized, order and organization doesn't come easy.
Just the other day, I had to buy a box of forks on Amazon. And through all of this, I'm not talking about disposable flatware. I mean the stainless steel kind. Not silver, nothing fancy, just regular restaurant forks. And when they came, I started shoving them into the fork section of my drawer organizer. But they didn't all fit. So, I did what Geneva Hammond would do, and I laid them down in the drawer, out of order.
And when I did it, I heard her say “alright, getchu a plate. It's ready!”
