Everybody needs a kitchen chicken

Our new kitchen came with open shelves, which their designer, Andy, insisted were for decorative display and not for my baking gear (what a spoilsport.)  Here is how I 'decorated' one of them. 

Ah, Henny.  I spotted her at the Royal Winter Fair almost a year ago now, and I knew right away that
a/ she was coming home with me and
b/ she was going to live on a shelf in the kitchen to ensure I would be happy there.

How can you not be happy looking at a soft fuzzy chicken?  Plus: she coordinates perfectly with the rest of the decor.  She's like staging, but for people who are oblivious to decorative vases and hunt instead for cuddly stuffed animals, as opposed to the slightly scary taxidermy kind I mean.

Okay so, fast forward from date of Henny purchase.  Last month I was in HomeSense (discount department store for housewares, for those of you who don't have one) and I spotted a CERAMIC KITCHEN CHICKEN.

That's when I knew I was ahead of the curve and downright clever to pick up Henny when I did for this very important kitchen job.

The ceramic kitchen chicken was red with white polka dots.  Now, I love a good polka dot - they're up there with stripes, for me - and I would have bought that chicken without a second thought if I didn't already have Henny.  But as it was, I did take time for the second thought.  And that thought was,

What else does it do?

I picked it up and looked at it.   It was heavy, for a start.  There was no opening in the bottom except a little gap to let the clay cure properly.  There was no lid on the top to let you put cookies inside it.  It was mostly just heavy and decorative. 

And honestly, that's probably enough for a kitchen chicken.  If that kitchen is getting used at all, the chicken on the shelf is going to get at least a little greasy and the dust will stick to her and it will be all manner of ick, so it practically has to be a simple glazed clay piece that can be easily rinsed off.

But... my kitchen chicken does more.  She looks slightly downward at me with her head tilted inquisitively to one side, from her perch directly above the counter where I am dumping my stuff after coming in or putting it together to go out, as if to ask with concern how I'm doing.  She is just the right colours for the room, calming me down by not being too attention-getting.  And she is soft, so it's great that she's right there where I need her, if it's a bad day and I need a quick hug or something nice to touch.

(seriously, this is a not-uncommon knitter's thing, right? where you get so accustomed to textiles in your hand that it's a comfort to reach out and touch something soft?)

Try getting all that from a painted ceramic chicken.

Okay, I will admit this: a ceramic chicken can be right inside the kitchen with no fear of grease spatters.  Henny pretty much has to be stationed on Andy's shelf, which faces into the living room, far from the stove.

Since the red chicken with white polka dots, I've seen more ceramic chickens in shops here and there, and I expect I'll start seeing them inside people's houses soon too.

But Henny was a kitchen chicken first.  Ha!