When I came to Italy I was determined to make the best of it. Of course, I was also very optimistic about the future too. Love does that to people, I guess.
Actually, it has been very refreshing living here. I find that the lifestyle is less materialistic. My life certainly is, anyway. I don’t own an i-anything and I don’t have a flat screen TV or a Wii or any of those little handheld gadgets other than a very simple cell phone. We have a decent car, but nothing fancy, etc.
One of signs of a less materialistic lifestyle is that people here aren’t constantly moving to a bigger house with more square footage and more rooms than they could ever need. It seemed a constant thing back in the states. Most of the people I worked with moved every few years into a newer house and bought a new car every couple of years as well. Fortunately there’s no “keep up with the Joneses” here – at least not where I live.
But, there is one thing that I miss and that I made O promise me that I could have if we ever decide to buy or fix up a house. That thing is an American-style kitchen. Why? Because, frankly, Italian kitchen design is stupid. OK, maybe there are some well-designed Italian kitchens out there but I have to admit that I have never seen one in any of the houses I’ve been in. The only smart thing in an Italian kitchen is the dish rack. (Mine no longer looks like the one in that post since I moved to a new apartment shortly afterwards. Now the one I have is smaller and less efficient.)
The reason I say this is because Italian kitchens have no counter space and very little storage space. My kitchen, for example has very small top cabinets that are built so that you can put things to display on top of them – knick knacks and the like. I’d much rather have space to put stuff in them considering that there are so few of them. Knick knacks just need to be dusted. Plus, the kitchen is just along one short wall so I’m only left with about 10 inches of countertop that I can actually use for anything. That’s a pain when chopping vegetables and mixing batters.
Another thing I hate about my kitchen is the stainless steel. Now I know that there are kitchens all over the world that also use an overabundance of stainless steel, so it’s not an Italian-only thing. I can’t stand it though. Besides the fact that your kitchen looks overly institutional, it’s also a pain in the neck to keep clean. All it takes is one touch and it looks like you never clean it. In order to keep my stainless steel rangetop and sink clean I have to spray it with special cleaner and buff it dry. Come on people, who has time for that? Who in their right mind would design a kitchen that takes twice as long to clean?
And speaking of design.. who’s designing these Italian kitchens with all of the wasted space? Maybe I ought to go into the kitchen design business here.
**End of rant**











