The Kitchen Wars

During 1927, Thea, only nineteen, married in a white framed country church which smelled of peonies and sprigs of lilac flowers. The wedding rites were recited on a Sunday afternoon in late May so none of the farmers, including her father and her groom, missed a day from field work. Thea raised her eyes to the heavens and prayed. Please help me be a good wife. She and her family would face the Depression, grasshoppers, the Dust Bowl, and near poverty. However, it was the kitchen that challenged Thea. It became a personal war that challenged her very sense of being. The young bride didn't consider how difficult it would be to live under the same roof as her mother-in-law. On the first day of her married life, Thea faced a demanding Lena Brauner who considered herself the queen of the kitchen. The kitchen — a room that no one associates with a battle ground — would become a turbulent realm in which decisive family activities, crucial decisions, vital expectations, and tempestuous arguments were conducted. The new bride needed prowess. Thea needed to master the skills of dynamic collaboration, abundant absolution, sincere compassion, and immeasurable tolerance. Defeat was not an option.