It has been more than two months that the kitchen has been under construction; and, for much of that time, off-limits.

We're more accustomed to the smell of sawdust in the morning or, while the hardwood floor was put in, the unnatural sweetness of polyurethane.

But over the weekend, we sneak in, occupying land we know we cannot hold: There are brooding stretches of soapstone counter in there now, and a shiny, black refrigerator.

There's a farmhouse sink we had built in Quakertown, and actual running water.

And a stove with an electronic pad that is biding its time - I can tell by the look in its green eyes - waiting to spring a holiday malfunction.

On this particular weekend, I want something simple - to cook a pot of red beans. To fix a salad and cut a hunk of bread.

This is what it has come down to: Tens of thousands of dollars. An architect to draw plans. A contractor and his team to tear up floors, punch out windows, hang maple cabinets, and hook up this stainless-steel, JennAir, semi-commercial, evilly-winking stove, to cook what?

A pot of red beans?

A campfire would do.

Everyone has kitchen stories - pricy cabinets whose panels are already slipping out of whack, flooded basements that look like the sewers of Paris.

Thank you for sharing.

The most common one, though, is the good ol' end-of-project sputter. This is not a sometimes thing: It is a law of nature.

No project, my friends, is immune. A colleague budgeted four weeks for hers. It took four months.

We've busied ourselves obsessing over door knobs, finding our favorites (after haunting showrooms from Chester to King of Prussia) at Home Depot.

There's the unresolved matter, as well - who pre-thinks such things? - of the proper tile color, glaze and size tile for 30 square feet of backsplash.

I found the bite-size subway tile I wanted at a place called Waterworks. They would not tell me the price. They would e-mail it to me, they said. This is because they could not say it to my face, perhaps because it costs (according to the e-mail) five times the going rate for even higher-end ceramic tile.

So we've moved on, pacing the razor-thin space between "tea green" and "moss" in Roku's line of frosted (not clear) glass subway-style tile.

Permit me to say only this: Green tea has lost all soothing properties whatever.

Moss, too.

I retrieve the big copper pot from its exile in the back room, locate a wooden spoon, upend the cardboard covering from the counter, and get to chopping.

The peppers and garlic, the onion and celery sizzle in the oil; "until fragrant," suggests my friend Craig's recipe - and in minutes they are.

In goes a pound of dried red beans, in goes the smoked turkey wing and enough water to cover.

I turn the flame down to almost-flicker. We're heading to Adamstown to hunt for a table for the future kitchen. We'll be gone for hours.

In the end we do not, of course, find a table. But we buy two lovely country quilts.

So it goes, one step forward, one step sideways.

The beans simmer all day long, giving off their perfume.

They turn creamy and drink up the smoke. A hit of Tabasco gives them tang; the tender wing-meat adds a shot of saltiness.

We spoon them hungrily - ladle after ladle of them - over bowls of white rice for dinner.

In the morning, all traces are gone - the pot spirited away, the spoon back to the hutch, the cardboard sheets reinstated.

Only the smoked turkey scent remains, proving that dinner wasn't a dream, whetting our appetite for another serving - maybe tonight? - of kitchen.