Is cooking for a family a form of love or a burden?

 She Cooked for Everyone. No One Noticed She Was Tired

I can still smell the cinnamon, the simmering stew, the fresh dough rising under a damp towel. My grandmother’s kitchen was alive warm, loud, always in motion. It was her kingdom. She ruled it with practiced hands, sharp eyes, and a deep sense of pride.

But now, as I look back, I realize it was also her cage.

Like so many women of her generation, my grandmother lived most of her life within four walls apron tied tight, feet on tile, hands always busy. She created magic in that space, no doubt. But that magic came at a cost.

The Power of Her Kitchen

To us, her grandchildren, her kitchen was a wonderland. There was always something cooking soft flatbreads on the griddle, pots bubbling over with thick lentil soup, trays of cookies waiting to be devoured.

Everything in that kitchen had a place, and she moved through it like a queen on her throne. She didn’t need a recipe. She didn’t need measuring cups. Everything was done by instinct, from memory, with love.

And it was love. That kitchen was how she gave it. She fed neighbors, relatives, friends, and strangers. If someone came to the house, they ate. That was non negotiable.

When someone praised her food, you could see the pride flicker across her face a kind of quiet satisfaction. “It’s nothing,” she’d say, but we knew it meant everything.

The Unseen Labor

But now I wonder: who cooked for her?

Who made sure she rested while she was making sure everyone else was fed?

The kitchen may have been her pride, but it was also her prison. She didn’t choose it so much as it was chosen for her. From a young age, she was taught that this was her role  to serve, to care, to cook, to clean. No questions asked.

She didn’t complain. That wasn’t her way. But we saw it in the way she was always the last to sit at the table, the first to get up, the one who never stopped moving, even during holidays. It was as if rest was a luxury she didn’t believe she deserved.

Stories Never Told

There were books she wanted to read. Places she wanted to see. Maybe even things she wanted to create outside of a kitchen. But those dreams stayed silent buried beneath generations of expectation.

She could have been anything. But instead, she became what the world expected of her.

And I think about that a lot.

I think about how many women like her strong, smart, capable never had the chance to be anything but caretakers. How their talent was channeled into domestic work, unpaid and often unacknowledged. And how we grew up thanking them for their food but not always for their sacrifice.

Generational Shifts

Today, things are changing. Women are choosing careers, traveling, delaying marriage, or skipping it altogether. Kitchens are no longer seen as just a woman’s place at least not in every home.

But still, something lingers. The belief that a “good woman” is one who feeds, who serves, who sacrifices.

Sometimes, when I skip making dinner and order takeout, I feel a strange guilt like I’m failing some unspoken tradition. As if love isn’t real unless it’s homemade.

That’s how deep the legacy runs.

More Than a Kitchen

My grandmother’s kitchen taught me a lot. About love, about generosity, about precision and art. But it also taught me about limitation about what happens when a woman’s value is reduced to what she can produce for others.

She deserved more.

Not just applause for her meals, but rest.

Not just gratitude, but freedom.

Not just space in the kitchen, but space in the world.

What We Owe Them

We owe women like her more than stories of their recipes. We owe them recognition of what they carried the invisible weight of duty. And we owe them progress: to break the idea that service is the only language women are allowed to speak.

I still miss her food. I still try (and fail) to replicate it. But more than that, I miss her and I wonder who she might’ve been if she had been born in another time.

Honor and Question

We can honor our grandmothers without romanticizing the limits they lived within. We can cherish their strength and still question the system that demanded it.

Her kitchen was a kingdom, yes but no queen should ever be confined to just one room.

May 28, 2025 Tags : grandma cooking

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