Ghostly Silence

Whatever happened to those silvery worlds where seductive, smiling models with perfectly polished nails softly pressed the buttons on the dishwasher or where thirty-something token men in aprons enjoyed a glass of red wine with their girlfriends while cooking together? Whatever happened to those worlds of images that once advertised a new, rational, yet comfortable, large-family-style domesticity that nevertheless bristled with the sex appeal of single life and on every corner proclaimed the new joys of cooking, the perfect hobby for both men and women? These feel-good kitchen figures have disappeared from the image worlds that once graced the pages of trade magazines. In their place have come multi-media walls, mobile telephones, and flat screens with relaxed people consuming or communicating with or in front of them. The new kitchen, with its weekend warriors fiddling with pots and pans like sous-chefs, brandishing knives like butchers, and abusing the chopping block — while under a cloud of steam the size of a cafeteria kitchen the consommé simmers away — has left us.