Feng Shui for the Holiday Season
Preparing Dinner for Guests
Of course, the host doesn’t want to spend the entire evening in the kitchen. Make-ahead dishes work best for entertaining, so all that’s necessary is for the host or hostess to heat-and-serve. Even so, some kitchen time is inevitable and guests often tend to congregate in this room. That’s why a Feng Shui kitchen is important for holiday get-togethers; how people feel when they spend time in this space can set the tone for the entire evening. The stove is one of the three most important areas in your home and reflects the way you make money and how others view you professionally. Chances are, your stove will be seeing a lot of action as you prepare your holiday dinners — this is good! Use all four burners and keep the stove clean in between cooking projects. Having a sponge or towel nearby (but not too close to the fire) to wipe up spills as they happen means you’ll never face an overwhelming cleaning job from caked-on foods and liquids.
The best location for a stove is in the command position of the kitchen, overlooking the rest of the room. This permits the cook to see everything going on — which is a huge bonus for holiday entertaining, but is also good Feng Shui. If anyone sneaks up on the cook and startles him or her, according to ancient Feng Shui beliefs, that “fear” may enter the food, ruining the taste and even making the people who eat it feel uneasy or ill.
A stove in the command position basically requires a center island with a stove in the center and, unfortunately, many smaller kitchens simply aren’t designed this way. But expensive changes aren’t necessary; place a mirror on the backsplash of a stove to create the sense that the cook can see everything around him. A cook who is preparing food for a dinner party with lots of people around will want to join in the conversation.
Blue or green are good colors for a kitchen; green will stimulate the palate, while blue will dampen it to help with weight loss. Yellow will encourage conversation and further cement the kitchen as the social hub of the home.
However, the best color for a Feng Shui kitchen is white, representing purity and a clean palate on which to create culinary masterpieces. Use blue, yellow, green or earth tones as accent colors against white walls. Avoid red, as this adds too much fire element to the space and can lead to hot tempers, arguments, misunderstandings and even literal fires in the home. During Dinner As you move to the dining room for dinner, pay careful attention to the seating arrangement. A round table, with no beginning and no end, is best, but don’t worry if your table is rectangular. Position it so everyone has enough space to sit. You don’t want guests pushed into a corner or feeling trapped.
