The year is 1998. I’m 5 years old, coming home from a half day of kindergarten. I’m sitting in my mom’s kitchen while she makes me a snack, probably something adorable, like ants on a log or Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal (IYKYK). This kitchen is my safe space, not just for time with family and good food, but for the vibes. It’s peak Chicken Kitchen nostalgia, replete with farmhouse finds in every corner: a green gingham tablecloth, frilly valences, a Longaberger basket filled with shiny red apples. My mother hates to bake, but I swear, walking into our old kitchen you’d expect to see a cartoon pie sitting on an open windowsill, cartoon squiggles wafting off to hungry passersby.
I’m 32 now, and all I yearn for is the ’90s Chicken Kitchen. A place to come together in total provincial bliss. A place for family dinners, for holiday traditions, for Reba McEntire on an old boom box. Country kitchens were comforting and cheerful, defined by their honeyed wood cabinetry and welcoming layouts. And, of course, their chickens—whether they were a stoneware hen or a rooster print, chickens were the moment. The ’90s Chicken Kitchen made guests feel like there was a basket of fresh eggs in the fridge waiting just for them that had been collected minutes before they arrived—even if you were 50 miles from the closest farm.
What I loved most about the Chicken Kitchen was how familiar it felt. Everyone had a Chicken Kitchen. As a shy, introverted kid, I’d walk into any of my friends’ houses and immediately feel at ease at the sight of a rooster or plump country goose.
Even if folks didn’t go full Chicken, the sentiment was there. I remember our neighbors across the street swapped roosters for cows: cow canisters, cow linens, a herd of cow figurines set high on a farmhouse shelf, ostensibly admiring these bovine trappings. Another classmate’s parents leaned hard into apples. They even had an apple-printed border framing their entire kitchen and dining room. Such dedication
Maybe our parents wanted to be farmers. Maybe they, too, yearned for simpler, more pastoral times. Or maybe they watched too much Paula Deen. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the ’90s Chicken Kitchen made me feel secure, welcome, and loved—the goal of any good family kitchen.
I miss the chickens. I miss the apples. I miss the whimsical geese wearing blue bonnets and ribbons around their necks. We’ve put our proverbial Chicken Kitchens out to pasture and replaced them with sterile, cookie-cutter blah: pretentious stainless-steel appliances that look like they came from a NASA lab. When I walk into a kitchen and the most colorful thing I see is a pastel Our Place pan, I am bored. And don’t give me “modern farmhouse”—I see right through your mason jars and reclaimed wood accents.
In the age of microtrends, my dream kitchen isn’t sleek or curated for Instagram—it’s a place to relax and connect, warmed in honey oak woodwork and buttery, yellow paint. Give me homey and bucolic; a lazy Susan under the counter and a skirted cabinet. You can keep your $2,000 espresso machines and designer cookware—all I want is a country goose cookie jar and vintage Corningware. If you’re reading this, you too can bring back the ’90s Chicken Kitchen. I know I will, and all are welcome in my henhouse.
