Markus Zusak on the beauty of kitchen chaos

Markus Zusak is the international bestselling author of six novels, including The Book Thief (which spent more than a decade on The New York Times bestseller list) and most recently, Bridge of Clay. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Zusak lives in Sydney with his wife and two children.

Robert Frost might have said, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall", but a similar thought might have been hurled, many years ago, from a small suburban house, in a smaller suburban Sydney: Who the hell wouldn't love a kitchen? For me the kitchen is many things, but mostly it's a household's Central Station ... People, memory, arguments, laughter. They all cross paths, from morning to night. We all change trains in the kitchen.

As a kid, in a southern outpost of Sydney, our kitchen was a thoroughfare, or avenue. It was physically a lot like a hallway, given you could walk through the house in circles, due to extensions being added through the decades. We had a meal bar against the wall, which was brick (it had once been the outside of the house), and that meal bar had a Laminex surface, and I can still see the peppery pattern – probably to hide all the crumbs.

What I remember most, though, is the toaster sitting on a higher shelf, and you could see yourself eating your cereal; its frontage was a rusty mirror. You could see how messy your hair was, or the crookedness of your bottom teeth. You could see the world outside in it, reflected from beyond the window.

The floor of that kitchen was lino, of course, with a seam right down the middle. Again I can still see the pattern – silver circles, sort of grey. And I can see its imperfections, how it was splitting like a tiring banana, towards the room attached to it – a miniature space called the Bauernschtum, which is German slang for "dining room". Needless to say, we never ate there. Broken skis hung down from its ceiling. We always ate in the kitchen.

Oh, but that kitchen! That lino! Often I played a version of lawn bowls there. (I won't bore you with details of the rules.)

I like working in our kitchen, because my theory is that despite our discomforts and complaining, we all invite chaos willingly.

I remember cooking eggs with my sisters. I remember making chocolate pudding once in the school holidays, and reading the recipe wrongly ... I used two cups of sugar instead of tablespoons. (I poured the mix out into the garden.)

I remember copping the wooden spoon in that kitchen, too, especially when my brother Rob and I came back from Anzac Oval covered from head to toe in mud. It had been raining for probably a fortnight, and we'd tackled and fought and beaten each other while our dad was talking to Glenn Walters.

When Dad saw us walking over, and deciphered that these were, in fact, his sons, he'd said: "Geez, your mum's going to be happy with you two," and he certainly wasn't far wrong. She'd been cleaning all day, at other people's houses and mansions – and here were her two boys, like storm clouds stood in her kitchen. We smeared things by just standing near them.

We were dragged from the kitchen to the laundry, outside, where all of us still had our showers. (Perfectly enough, that laundry was originally the kitchen, when the garage was actually the house). So really we were dragged from kitchen to kitchen, and the spoon came walking with us.

Often what I remember, though, were the times our parents told stories there, from war-time Vienna and Munich – and it was like the world had transformed. We weren't in suburban Sydney any more. There were histories out by the edge of our house, and Europe was in our kitchen. It might have been 36 degrees outside, but in here, it was snowing from the ceiling. And when finally the snow had ended, there was fire, above us, in the sky. We were sitting in a broken city. There'd been bombings throughout the evening. There'd been humans sent to prison for absolutely no reason: the world before ours, still with us.

But then, of course, there was laughter too, when they told us of all the characters – the kids they had each grown up with: the swearers, the fighters, the losers, the winners. The guy who fell from the clouds when the carnival came to town and the swing carousel broke, mid-ride.

I look back now, and wonder at it all; and weirdly (yet appropriately) I think of the Sgt. Pepper's record sleeve, and its great array of faces – for that's how I see that kitchen. I see a cast of stories and characters. Now, of course, it's been years, decades, since I lived in that old house, or woke up and walked to its kitchen.

Sometimes I still go back there, where my mum has typically remodelled. At 82 years old, she's still proud that at 75 she nailed floorboards onto the walls, then stained them. It all looks astoundingly good. I go back there and we sit and talk. My parents still tell their stories.

As for me, and my own kitchen – it's funny. The best things are always to be found there.

Sometimes I like working in our kitchen, because my theory is that despite our discomforts and complaining, we all invite chaos willingly. We like lives that are slightly derailed ... and that's why my workroom is open. Its door is never quite closed. I want to hear those kids arguing, or for dogs to arrive and start sulking. When I'm at my best, I move round the house, and most often I'll work in the kitchen. I want to yell at someone, or shout, "Shut that bloody cat up!" and then get back to writing.

Most recently, in July last year, I was doing last edits at 7am on a book that was finally ending, after 13 long years of work. My daughter was eating Special K across from me – and my children, they eat like barbarians. At one point, after several minutes grinding my teeth, I said, "Are you right over there, kid? ... That mess and all that crunching? I'm trying to get some work done here."

And immediately she stopped, mid-chew – and mid-spoon on the way to her mouth – and spoke with great incredulity. "You? Work?"

There was a pause, then both of us – laughter.

The best stories come out in the kitchen.

This is an edited extract from The Two Good Cookbook, $40, which will be published on November 1.