Give us a story or poem or some piece of writing about the kitchen.

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home.

What happens in the kitchen? Is it about the cooking? Maybe the stress of cooking for guests – who’s coming, what’s the occasion? Why is it so important? What’s going wrong?

Maybe it’s about having a new kitchen – what could possibly go wrong there?

Perhaps it’s a memory of a kitchen from many years ago – whose is it? why is it so memorable?

Is it a domestic kitchen, or in a restaurant/school/nursing home/village hall, something like that – or on board ship or in a cabin in the woods? It could be about a kitchen in a foreign place – your character might be fascinated by someone cooking something exotic.

Maybe it’s a scene about something completely different, but the characters just happen to be in a kitchen, that’s all – if that’s the case, don’t just say ‘David and Samira were in the kitchen’, have them doing something in there, using the kitchen.

Perhaps there’s someone who shouldn’t be in the kitchen, shouldn’t even be in the house…

There’s plenty of scope for you to use all your senses here – kitchens are noisy places, running water, pots, pans, drawers opening and closing, things boiling, bleepers going off.

There’s all the smells of cooking – herbs, spices, raw food, bins that have been left too long.

Sight: colours – the glorious colours of food, the worktops, the walls, tea towels, oven gloves, kitchen calendars…

Touch – how do various foods feel in your hand? Is there a favourite wooden spoon that your character always turns to because it just feels right? Are there sharp corners in the kitchen that your character could knock against? Heat? Cold? Sharp knives?

And of course, taste.

So give us some piece of writing sparked off by the word kitchen.