I’m always somewhere between delighted and humbled when I come across a curiosity-centric enterprise that is new to me.
I think: I should already know about this!
And: oh, cool! Who knew?
Which were precisely my reactions when I stumbled across the social media presence of The Atlantic’s Object Lessons, a series on the hidden lives of ordinary things. I realized I’d read these pieces over the years, but never followed the digital breadcrumbs. Then one day, there they were.
An hour on, and I was still wriggling down rabbit holes and delighting in one improbable post after another. The pictures of cookware were what finally snagged me. Having spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the holidays and having become rather inured to the setting, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for a little culinary curiosity, a refresher course in what surrounds me.
And so Choose to be Curious, Kitchen Edition was born. For a week, I tried to look around my kitchen with fresh eyes, to appreciate anew the objects there and wonder at their stories. Whence had they come? Could their function be improved? Did I favor one over another? Why? I was always tickled by the queries that had never occurred to me before. It was like fishing for new stories among old friends. I recommend it.
#choosetobecurious #objectlessons #kitchen






And then I took up Jason Horowitz’s challenge: 100 (!) pictures in my kitchen…




































































































All photographs taken by Lynn Borton in my own kitchen.
Wherever you are, choose to be curious.