When our little one was two her father and I got her the best play kitchen ever.  I had always dreamed of having an Easy-Bake Oven as a kid but we did not have the money.  So I confess I had a lot of fun choosing this for her.  The kitchen is four feet tall with pink “brick” walls and has a microwave, an oven, a refrigerator, and a sink.  Plus it boasts a stove with burners that “sizzle” when you put a frying pan on it and when you place a pot on it makes bubbling sounds.  There is dish rack up top and even a little cubby down below for feeding a dog, cat, mouse, or whatever critter she chooses.  It has a dry erase board, a coffee maker, bins for storing both canned goods and recycling, and hooks to hang her utensils above the stove.  In the top center of it all is a picture of our family in a built-in plastic frame.  The English actress Michelle Dockery said, “The kitchen is the most important place in any house.  Visit your family, and that’s where you’ll end up.  Go to a party, that’s where everyone congregates.”  Burk and I have sat countless times at her little table and chairs as she has graciously served us tea, cookies, and toast from her toaster that really makes the bread pop up when it’s “done.”  For Christmas my father-in-law and step mother-in-law got her this darling cooking set.  I couldn’t even get our little one upstairs in her own kitchen to take the picture!  So this was taken in our real kitchen where she proudly put on her oven mitt, hat, and asked for help tying her apron.  She got a mixer with all the ingredients to make a cake:  flour, sugar, milk, and — the cutest of all — an egg that splits in half complete with a yolk inside!  It is ingenious; the yolk is yellow velcro that reattaches the egg.  The hubs got so excited he actually said, “NOW WE CAN MAKE CAKE!”  I have already been letting her crack real eggs and she uses her little stool to reach the counter.  I said this should be her sous-chef apron as she begins helping me cook more and more.  On that note, I think I shall end this and go see what we could be fixin’ in the kitchen.