(Opening chapter excerpt from Woodsongs II, copyright Rachel Aubrey Music, Inc.)
“You want to be a modern Troubadour? Then check out this book. Michael
Johnathon is a yankee who fell in love with Appalachia and became a full-time
folksinger. A very American story. You’ll like his songs and be glad for his
brashness.”
Pete Seeger
“Lee Hays once said, “One wishes that more young singers would be more radical -
that is, to find and cling to their roots. And if they can’t find any, grow
some...”. I think this applies to my friend Michael Johnathon as well. WoodSongs
is a collection of his roots, both found and grown.”
Don McLean
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| Michael's Farmhouse Kitchen in Kentucky |
The Significance of your Kitchen
When people ask me where I live, my answer is simple: I live in an airplane
and a car seat. When I’m not on the road, however, my precious time is spent in
a most romantic setting - I am a farmhouse dweller.
The first room you enter when coming into my farmhouse is, as it should be,
the kitchen The kitchen is the architectural welcome chamber in abodes
worldwide. It has been this way since mankind first figured out that food and a
sense of community are interchangeable and inseparable. In the earliest of
times, when people lived in caves, the kitchen was always at the the mouth of
the cave. Obviously, the first room you entered by necessity - it was the only
place to set the fire so the smoke could get out. Even so, it is fitting that
the kitchen should forever be the first place to set foot in when entering
someone’s living space.
I’m glad you’re here . . . and this is the place that says so.
My kitchen is the most wonderful, pleasing and lonesome room in this house.
It is welcoming in a great many ways. It welcomes you with the smell of
breakfast in the morning. It welcomes you with the lilting fragrance of homemade
pine-nut and sunflower seed pasta sauce simmering into its fourteenth hour on
the stove. It welcomes you with sights of a large bowl of garden salad set in
the center of my long wooden table. It welcomes you with growing plants in the
windowsill, bright green, living and breathing as they reflect the afternoon
sun.
I love my kitchen.
And I love my table.
My kitchen table is six feet long and completely made of wood. I can seat six
wooden chairs comfortably around it and it takes up the most prominent place in
the room. It is of an early Americana design that I found in a second-hand store
for $75. It has small, hand-shaped metal edges that decorate the corners of the
table top. The surface of the pine table is finished with a clear rubbing oil
and has a decidedly woodshop fragrance to it. A good, solid table is important.
It is the center point of life in your home, the communal gathering point of
your kitchen. Great dreams, brilliant poems, homework and wars have all been
planned and decided upon at kitchen tables throughout history.
My kitchen, when the house is empty but for me, is also the room that begs
the question, Where is everyone? Your kitchen seeks out your friends and family.
It longs for laughter and noise and conversation. It is the one room that speaks
loudest when your home is silent. This makes the kitchen the loneliest room in
the house.
To understand my appreciation for this gastronomic temple, I must first tell
you why I love my place.
I live in a farmhouse in the country on the north side of Fayette County in
Kentucky. I am a 15-minute drive to downtown Lexington. I enjoy Lexington. It is
a wonderful hometown full of creative and passionate people. It is the gateway
to Appalachia and sits at the crossroads of America’s folk and bluegrass music.
It is a songwriter’s heaven and a folksinger’s paradise. It has a wonderful “I
wish I was Cincinnati” aggressiveness but with a quaint, small-town atmosphere.
My children are growing up here and I like that.
My home sits on about two acres of wooded land, surrounded by a few hundred
acres of rolling meadows and horse farms. It is indeed a wonderful setting. I
get up in the morning, pour a hot cup of tea, gaze through my kitchen window
into the earthy expanse of trees, meadows and fields and thank God someone else
is financing my view.
Ahhhh, life is good.
I savour this moment each morning I am home. It is a Michael ritual that runs
a complete cycle each day. Like Thoreau, I believe in waking up slow, drinking
in the morning and letting gentle appreciation of the day ahead set upon you
softly.
Then I attack into it like a roaring Viking at seige.
‘Gentle appreciation’ has its limits when you are trying to get things done.
My home is the place where all the songs, save one, of the Homestead album
were written. It has seasoned wooden floors and windows laced with plants. I
have, no exaggeration, 30 or 40 plants inside my house. And yes, they are all
healthy.
Other than the kitchen, my second favorite room is the living room. I
designed the placement of the furniture in that room so everything faces my
passionate and adoring lover, the one whom I turn to for warmth and conversation
on lonely, snowy nights, the one who occupies my mind and body and senses. My
mistress who reflects what I wish my life could really be like someday . . .
. . . my fireplace.
I have a very passionate, ongoing relationship with my fireplace. If your
couch faces the TV in your home then you are doing it wrong. A fireplace is
nature’s TV set. No remote control or cable needed. It has one stunning channel
that has entertained people with the same untiring script and song for
generations and for thousands of years.
The kitchen’s equivalent to the living room fireplace is, of course, the
table. That is why I expound so much about it. The kitchen table is the altar of
your home. You should take the shape and length and design of your table very,
very seriously. Your kitchen table reflects the inner desire of what you wish
the quality of your life should be. It really does. For example: Does your life
feel cramped and artificial? Do you have a small, round formica table?
You do, don’t you!
Coincidence? I think not.
‘nuff said.
My living room compliments my kitchen because it is the place to retreat with
friends after your kitchen has exhausted all of its treasures. Your living room
is the place to go when you are ready to bask in the afterglow of the kitchen’s
glory.
Of course, it also has my DVD surround-sound system which is especially
useful during summer months when the only practical use of a fireplace is to
serve as one more plant stand.
So much for “nature boy.”
But unlike the living room, a kitchen has limited interchangeable uses. When
I first moved into this old home I thought long and hard about my kitchen. I
built my pot rack to hang from the ceiling above the stove. I placed the
pictures on the wall in just the right places. I picked out the plants and the
garden pots they will rest in with deference to the window and the sunlight they
will soak in. But something was missing, something was oddly un-present.
Something was completely wrong with the ambiance of my kitchen.
And then I discovered an odd and amazing fact of life:
The kitchen didn’t turn into a “kitchen” until I finally plugged in the
toaster.
Really.
It wasn’t until I bought my toaster, plugged it in and stuck my knife into
the butter that my farmhouse temple achieved its spiritual nirvana. The kitchen
depends on the fragrance of home to become a real kitchen.
And nothing smells of home more than wafts of toast in the morning as your
coffee perks.
What a great way to start your day!