Tag Archives: Personal cooking

It looks like we have come to a time where many people want to have two of everything.

We can find lots of people who got divorced and take another partner, sometimes get three times divorced and have not only their own kids but also the kids they call “plus children”. Those plus children have their plus parents and plus houses. First, they also had to have two sinks in the bathroom. The bathroom, typically included a bathtub of cast iron or pressed steel with a ceramic porcelain coating and later the much more used fibre-glass-reinforced resin, a ceramic lavatory, and a ceramic tank-type water closet or toilet. The bath and lavatory were supplied with hot and cold water through faucets with lever or screw-type valve controls, but now it is foreseen by a changeable plastic nozzle. Since a few decades, those kids of divorced parents also got everything in twos. Two houses, two pairs of the same t-shirts and shoes, bikes, bookcases, computers, televisions, even two pets, clubs a.o..
Some even do not mind to have a sort of double life. In real life they seem to have an other personality and an other life than on social media, like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

In the house, many found there had to be two bathrooms. It even has come so far, that there are apartments built with two bathrooms and houses with the ridiculous amount of three bathrooms (or even more), with sometimes also shower rooms.

In our childhood, we had to be satisfied with what we could get. We often focused on individual items and only kept the things that gave us ‘a thrill of joy’.

Even though a bathroom takes up a lot of living space, there are a lot of people who don’t mind sacrificing living space for a room they only use for a few minutes a day. They also have no desire to wait a few minutes for someone else in the household to use the bathroom. Preferably, they all want to use their own bathroom and toilet at the same time.

After years of years of being told that minimalism is the goal, that any self-respecting interior decorator embraces the quiet luxury of space, and that unnecessary possessions – especially the kind that don’t spark joy – are a cardinal design sin, you could be forgiven for thinking that when it comes to modern domesticity, less is more.

Some might feel that you have to give in to your own taste and style, because you were born with it.

“So often, when they declutter, people throw away the things that make their house their own. I think it’s rather a shame, this Ikea life.’

But for some people, it is very difficult to get rid of things from the past or not put things of their own taste in the living room. This means that for some, a variation of two styles emerges so that one gets two three-seater sofas or even two refrigerators in the house.

Apart from when it comes to ovens, and sinks, and fridges, and washing machines, and Christmas trees, and dishwashers and, increasingly, entire kitchens. In those cases, it seems, the new middle-class rule is “the more, the better”. Ideally, at least two of each. Any fewer and, well, how do you cope?

At the centre of any kitchen is an oven, but at the centre of many these days are two a minimum the same as two dishwashers. Some people are going more the kosher way and as such have two different sinks, like one can be for meat, the other for veg. One can be for hand-washing and drinks preparation, the other for sharp knives and draining the rice.
It’s really up to you, but since they’re deemed both more convenient and more hygienic, no kitchen designer will argue against a second sink these days. Naturally, Bieber, Beckham, Oliver and Fogle all have multiple. So do Catherine Zeta-Jones, Craig Revel Horwood and Jennifer Lopez. In the world of statement kitchens, it’s sinks or swim. And nobody wants to swim.

It has even come so far several people prefer having also two kitchens. The food writer and cook Nigel Slater has more than one, principally because his life revolves around cooking, so he divides “work cooking” and personal cooking. There was already in 2005 Ed Miliband, the then Labour leader who proved his man-of-the-people credentials by being filmed having a cup of tea with his wife, Justine, in his modest north London functional kitchenette… for tea and quick snacks whilst he also had another kitchen, and was therefore daubed “Two kitchens Miliband”.

Celebrities embrace having twos of everything. Influencers influence it; estate agents prioritise it. It’s the rise of the double life. Thought you had it all? You’re really only halfway there…

Please come to read more about it:

Why having two of everything is the new middle class life goal