From that day on, Tita's domain was the kitchen, where she grew vigorous and healthy on a diet of teas and thin corn gruels. This explains the sixth sense Tita developed about everything concerning food. Her eating habits, for example, were attuned to the kitchen routine: in the morning, when she could smell that the beans were ready; at midday, when she sensed the water was ready for plucking the chickens; and in the afternoon, when the dinner bread was baking, Tita knew it was time for her to be fed.

[…]

[F]or Tita the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food. It wasn't easy for a person whose knowledge of life was based on the kitchen to comprehend the outside world. That world was an endless expanse that began at the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house, whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door, on through the door leading to the patio and the kitchen and herb gardens was completely hers—it was Tita's realm.

Basic set-up:

Here the narrator describes Tita's childhood. Tita is the protagonist of Esquivel's novel, and she has some extraordinary powers when it comes to food.

Esquivel's novel takes place largely in a very mundane location: the kitchen. We all have kitchens. We cook in them, we eat in them, we chill in them. A kitchen is a staple part of every home. By focusing on the kitchen, Esquivel is setting her novel in the realm of the domestic and the everyday.

The passage above is all about Tita's childhood spent in the kitchen. Seems pretty ordinary, right? Well, despite the mundane location, we can already sense that strange things are beginning to happen in this kitchen.

Even though Tita's just a small child, she already has a "sixth sense" about food. She knows when the "beans [are] ready," she knows when "the dinner bread [is] baking," and she knows when the chickens are about to be plucked. She's already developing some pretty unusual powers when it comes to food. As the novel progresses and Tita grows older, these powers will become more and more extraordinary.

Once again, we see a Magic Realist writer turning something mundane—food—into something fantastic. Reading about Tita's adventures in the kitchen, we start to think, "Yeah, making food really is kind of an uncanny thing. There is really is some kind of magic involved."