In The Kitchen

Gates connects with his audience with his conversational tone throughout this slice of nostalgia, reaching back to the days of Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. This memoir is based on a thread of not only his personal past but his race’s history, ‘the very kinky bit of hair at the back of your heard, where your neck meets your shirt collar’, the kitchen. The kitchen to him wasn’t just a hairstyle or a daily hassle. It was his history, a trademark for his people, a sign of dissimilation from white culture. He states that the kitchen ‘was permanent, irredeemable, irresistible, kink'.
This memoir hits the reader with dose of nostalgia as well as a taste of his upbringing with mentions of the old fashioned ways that they were accustomed to such as a gas stove, Colgate toothpaste, and Walter Cronkite. Add baseball and Coca-Cola, you’ve got an All-American lineup. These were elements of the kitchen, but of the strongest of memories, is the hot comb, that was used to straighten hair. It was placed in the gas stove to heat up until it was red hot. He can remember how soothing that smell was to him because it meant his mother was in the kitchen doing her hair or somebody else’s. That was home for him. The smell of the grease being fried by the hot comb was indicative of the kind of day he was going to have. It was therapeutic in nature because the hair would change from the kink of hair into something truly wonderful.
While I cannot connect with Gates’ ethnic background, I can however relate to the value he places on home and the history of it. We each have our own little nuggets of nostalgia that point a magic compass at our soft spots. It’s a beautiful thing that makes us human.