Stop It With This Kitchen

Jenny from My Favorite and My Best finds the best rooms. I mean:

Even though I have some concerns about temperature/humidity control and all that wine...this kitchen makes me melt. I want it.

I Like the Kitchen

This makes me smile:

Via James Lileks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And as a pre-turkey treat: ten pretty celebrity kitchens. Well, pretty-ish. Most of them look kind of boring to me, though I do like Winona Ryder's.

Lady Gaga, though? WOW it disappoints.

Jane Jetson's Kitchen

You know what? I'm actually glad I don't live in "the future" as it was seen through the eyes of 1955.

Don't get me wrong: flying cars would be cool. But it seems that everybody in the '50s was so obsessed with time-saving and efficiency that they didn't realize that maybe, we'd actually want to spend time on certain activities. Like cooking.

I've written here before about the evolution of cooking from chore to hobby - which had something to do with time-saving techniques that allowed women to get out of the kitchen at least some of the time. Based on this Popular Science slideshow of "kitchens of the future," the real attitudinal shift - when people started thinking of cooking as fun - didn't happen until well after the mid-20th century.

The kitchen above was designed in the mid-50's and it takes efficiency to a whole new level. The idea was that with the push of just one button, an entire meal - seasoned and all - will be prepared. No need for Wifey to toil away over the stove. Now she's got more time for vacuuming and hospital corners (or martinis).

Do I want it? No. Does it represent a time and a place I'm glad I don't live in? Yes. But am I so, so glad that scanners were invented so that we can preserve it? Absolutely. It's a pretty great reminder that when my grandmother was making dinner, it was a much bigger pain than it is for me today.

Plus, even if the actual technology behind the kitchen misses a few late 20th century trends, I'll tell you what I do like: that mid-century aesthetic. Look at those cabinets and all that stainless steel. Why, it looks like...my kitchen.

Designing Tuesday: A Kitchen Rainbow

Today at Alluminare, I'm writing about color in the kitchen. I won't repeat all the text over here, but I think the images are pretty on their own:

[Photo Credits: Red and green kitchens from Houzz.com. Orange and purple kitchens from The Kitchn. Yellow, blue, and indigo kitchens from Elle Decor.]

Ideabook Tuesday: 10 Tips for a Small Kitchen

Editors like lists, right? Well...here's a list:

10 Tips for Making the Most of a Small Kitchen

houzz- kitchen design, bathroom design, landscaping and more

Trendy Monday: Julie & Julia

The movie opened last Friday - and talk about buzz. I'm the target audience for this movie and based on the press I've seen, somebody in PR is doing their job well.

So I'll add a bit, with this ideabook comprised of chef's kitchens, starting with the movie's recreation of Julia Child's famous Boston digs:

In the Chef's Kitchen

houzz- home design, kitchen design, bathrooms and more

The Chef's Home

The Selby just posted photos of Parisian chef, Sebastien Gaudard's apartment. Chefs! Paris! Interiors!

P.S. Check out how narrow his bathroom is. It's a good thing that French people aren't fat, huh?

Dixon's Kitchen

I've got a lot going on this morning, so in lieu of an early-morning "trendy Monday" post, here's a picture of Dixon on Christmas morning:

It's an awfully nice kitchen, if I do say so myself.

Quotable Tuesday: Kitchen Art

(I wrote this a while back for the Design Public website, but I don't think it was ever used, so I'm reposting it here.)

My kitchen sees a lot of use. I cook an actual at-the-stove meal at least once a day (sometimes twice) and I am not neat doing it. I envy chefs who keep their stoves and counters spotless while they sauté. I don’t.

The flip side of this is that I also really love art and I think the kitchen – where people always hang out – is an ideal spot to showcase cool pieces. Fun, irreverent stuff that may look out of place in the living room just feels right in the kitchen.

Nobody wants to ruin their prized paintings with olive oil spray or the after-effects of a particularly steamy mistake. But the kitchen is for cooking. So how to reconcile?

In my case, with distance. I’m lucky to have a big wall far from my stove, sink and counters – that wall is now home to a favorite painting. If your floor plan doesn’t allow you to put space between your art and actual cooking area, look for hardy framing options, go for sculptures or cool mobiles that add interest but stay out of the way, or focus on inexpensive and resilient art – and cook away.

****

I was thinking about this article this morning, when I wrote this:

To me, "kitchen art" is in a category all it's own.

I'm writing these days for a new home design website called houzz.com. It's a cool site (and I am saying that not just because they hired me, though of course in my eyes, that makes them sooo cool).

You use the site as a place to create "ideabooks" - collections of images of spaces that inspire you. The idea is that these virtual ideabooks can replace the sloppy tear sheet folders that accumulate when you're into design. Of course, I'm sure I'll never be ready to totally give up my tear sheets (or my stacks of magazines) but it's always nice to have another source for design ideas.

Artsy Wednesday: Want to See the Inside of My Refrigerator? It's Pretty.

A while back - over a year ago, just as we were embarking on our renovation adventure - I wrote a post about a random idea I had for a coffee table book. I thought it would be cool to photograph the inside of celebrities' refrigerators. The real inside, not the Cribs-ified version.

This, of course, spiraled into some very negative thoughts about what the inside of my refrigerator looked like at the time. We had just started the construction then, so my kitchen was still intact (the first step was to build the addition outside, so we were able to keep our kitchen somewhat kitcheny until the contractors came through the back wall of the house). Still, things were dusty, to say the least, and since I knew I was about to get all new appliances, I wasn't too concerned about keeping anything clean. Including the inside of my refrigerator.

Last week, I ran across some old pictures I snapped, just after I wrote that post. I had the foresight to capture the look of the inside of my refrigerator back in October 2007, with the plan that I'd take pictures of the inside of my new refrigerator for later comparison. So I did.

They're not exactly apples to apples pictures - because of the setup of the new vs. old, I was able to capture all of my new refrigerator and freezer in one shot, while last year's model just includes the inside (not the door) of the refrigerator proper. But still, I think it provides some insight into how a new refrigerator has changed my behavior. Um, not at all. Check it out:

Food is just as slammed into the new refrigerator as the old. Maybe even more so. There's no neat, orderly organization. I'm a refrigerator slob.

To be fair, in real life, I think the new refrigerator is a little more organized than the old one. But wow - to the naked eye - not so much.

I learn something new about myself every day.

Quotable Tuesday: Old Timey Kitchen Design Video Edition

I'm amazed by how it is both laughably dated and yet full of still-relevant advice.

That's what Epicurious blogger James Oliver Cury has to say about the USDA kitchen design video he posts here. The video is long (13 minutes) but it's full of fascinating stuff, if you're into kitchen design (or research).

It's interesting how many elements suggested in the video are worked into our new kitchen design - but also interesting how many elements would've been impractical in my kitchen, knowing how I use it.

The kitchen in the video is designed for baking - it seems efficient, but since I don't bake much, some of the features would be lost on me. Our kitchen was built with two things in mind: cooking at the stove and hanging out. When we met with Virginia (our architect), I told her I wanted two things: a pull-out double trash can (so we could stop keeping our recycling on the counter) and an island big enough for our friends to sit around while we hang out. She delivered. I no longer have piles of cans scattered throughout my kitchen, and Virginia's "Irish bar" concept island is the center of our party house. There's a plug on one end for the iPod (and my computer) and the whole island is long enough for three separate conversations to happen around it at once.

Anyway, if you have 15 minutes to spare, check it out.

Our New Kitchen

About a week ago, our friend Tommy Sheldon came over to take a few pictures of our new kitchen. He's a professional photographer (his website is here) and takes great photos...unfortunately Baltimore is losing him to Portland, Maine at the end of this week.

Upstairs in the new bathroom and closet, we still have a lot of work to do and our backyard is currently covered in piles of dirt, but our kitchen is really and truly finished. And worth every second of the six miserable months it took.

Updates on My Life and a Semi-Restaurant Review: Verbena

For the two or so of you who are interested in what's going on in the life of your humble blogger...this week has been a big one. At 6:30 this morning, Cooper and Dixon and I finally returned home, after nearly a week in exile while our floor were finished. They look nice, though they have a little more of an olive undertone than I'd like - I'm not sure how I feel about them with the cherry cabinets, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Whatever the color, we're just happy to be home. Especially Dixon. He took a nap about 4 hours earlier than usual today, and I think it was just because he was psyched to be in his own crib.

For the past few days we've been flitting in between my parents' and Cooper's parents' houses, with a quick trip to Richmond (sans Dixon) thrown in. Tom and Cail (aka my brother and his girlfriend) live in Richmond and we don't get down there to see him nearly as much as I'd like to. It's only a couple of hours, but planning-wise, it might as well require a day-long flight. It's hard to coordinate.

Richmond was fun, though, and we ate well while we were there. As soon as we arrived, we headed to Tom and Cail's local, Can Can, for drinks and a snack. Mussels for Cooper and Cail and me, and quiche for Tom. And frites all around. Delicious, crispy, hot frites.

A few hours later, we met some friends for dinner at a new place called Verbena. It's only been open since the first of February, but Tom and Cail had been a few times already and one of the friends we met for dinner is tight with the owner (I think Tom's friend is the owner's lawyer), so we had high hopes, despite the newness of the spot.

The space was very cool - simply decorated, a fantastic and shiny copper (?) ceiling and cool little alcoves in the walls displaying wine bottles. It was a touch on the loud side, and it seems that they may not have worked out all of their scheduling issues (we didn't wait, but we ran into some people who had to wait for over an hour, despite their reservation), but on the whole it was a fun meal, the food was good and the wine list was both solid and reasonably priced. I had quail with brussels sprouts and wild rice and enjoyed the whole mess of it (though I do wish the sprouts had come whole or halved, instead of flaked).

However, for those who like drama with their meals, we had some. After dinner, we were lingering in front of the restaurant, saying goodbye to the friends who were heading home and coordinating our next stop with everybody else. The manager came out, looking concerned, and asked if everything was OK. Seems that, despite the note on the menu saying that parties of six or more will be charged an 18% gratuity, our server didn't add one to our bill...and we didn't notice. We'd left some tip, but not that much.

Everyone felt badly (partly for not paying attention more - apparently you could bill us for anything and we wouldn't notice) and we took care of the oversight. Yesterday, Tom forwarded me an email he got from the owner, just making sure that the experience was OK and apologizing for any confusion. Nice, I thought, and smart from a business standpoint, too. Tom and Cail eat out all the time and during dinner, we ran into two or three of their friends, plus one of Cooper's friends from college...Richmond is a small town and I would imagine that word of mouth really matters.

After the drama, we wrapped up the evening back at the bar at Can Can (where I drank a thousand pom fizzes - just pomegranate liqueur and champagne - a delicious headache), then back at Tom and Cail's. Words can't describe how tired I was during our drive home on Sunday morning, even after our obligatory stop at Waffle House and our quick drive through Cooper's alma mater.

Really, I'm glad to be home.

Trendy Monday: The Dwell Kitchen Blog

Dwell is my new favorite magazine. Oh, I know: it's not new. I've actually been reading it, here and there, for years. But for some reason - maybe it's my focus on the addition? - I've been obsessed with it for the past few months.

Reading the March issue last night, I was pleasantly surprised to see a note about their newish kitchen blog. Pretty pictures, succinct and clear writing, cool products.

All in all, pretty great way to keep up on kitchen trends, if you ask me.

Kitchen Gadgets: White People Like 'Em

Hilarious.

A Very Bloggy Week

It's been a big "faces with the blog" week. Tuesday night was dinner with Dara at Mari Luna (I'm not going to write a full-on review until I've been a few more times, but it was awesome from start to finish. Would recommend.)

And I've just returned from the very fancy-gourmet Dulaney Valley Shopping Center Starbucks, where I had coffee with a small brain trust of Baltimore food bloggers - most of the people who will be on the Great Tastes panel. In addition to Dara, I met Rachel, John, Dan, Meg and Erin.

I wasn't really sure what to expect going in. I've never met anybody "offline" before and, honestly, I think I have some negative mental images of the kinds of people who actually meet people online (somehow I exclude myself from that group, despite the fact that I am entirely a part of it). Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to meet the whole group - besides being totally normal (not an internet-obsessed shut-in among us) they were really funny. I love funny.

In unrelated news (though I suppose it could affect the blog, it being a food blog and all) my kitchen is back up and running. There are still some little things that need to be finished, and we'll have to be out of the house for a day at some point soon, so the floors can be finished, but almost all of my things are put away (I still have to empty out the buffet, since we're getting rid of it) and everything is 100% functional.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost any sort of ability to cook. I haven't gotten the hang of the new range and oven and so far, the two meals I've produced out of the kitchen have kind of sucked. Also, I keep forgetting to go to the grocery store, since I'm completely out of the habit.

It's like starting at square one again - a not so triumphant return to the winter of 2002, only with a wider variety of kitchen tools to play with.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get back to at least passable as a cook soon. If for no other reason than that I can't stomach any more pizza.

Want: Mikoto Knife Blocks

mikoto knife blocks
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard

Question: does the fact that we are almost finished a huge construction project that will result in a beautiful new kitchen mean I am more or less justified in purchasing these knife blocks?

I mean, we did just spend like a trillion dollars, so I guess I should be thinking frugally. But they're so cool! And wouldn't they make the kitchen that much more beautiful?

New Year, New Kitchen

One of the most exciting things that's slated to happen (to me) in 2008 is that I will - finally - have a kitchen again! I was just upstairs talking with Virginia (the architect) and Steve (the contractor). Apparently most of my appliances will be working tomorrow. We won't have countertops for a week or so (we're getting very black granite), but as long as we have plywood, I can deal.


I am very sure I've never been so excited to just have a dishwasher again.

It's unfinished and full of tools, but here's what we've got right now:

Looking into the kitchen from the doorway out of the living room. The big white building in the backyard is our garage - currently without siding, as it's being resided to match the house. Also, the stove is actually stainless (the white is the plastic wrap) and will, soon, have a stainless chimney hood above it and stainless tiles as a backsplash.


The kitchen from the dining room. The back of the island will be covered with a wood panel. And the window above the sink will, soon, be an actual window, not just a view of the back of the house wrap...

This is the view from the kitchen into the dining room, currently filled with tools and other construction accoutrements. Very, very open...

We still have a ways to go on the overall project even after the kitchen is finished (our master bathroom is framed out and insulated, but that's it). But for me, once I can cook again, I think my life is going to feel like my own once more.

All Over the Place

I'm getting backed up with posting again. I have my running list of things I want to post about, and I put them off and put them off. Then I run across an article about Seurat or DaVinci or whatever and I write about that...instead of hitting my list.

And then I write a post like this one - covering a couple of bases:

• You might notice some updates to the sidebar, and there are a few more on the way. I've joined an advertising network for food blogs. It's attached to a social networking site called Foodbuzz. It's really very cool - if you're at all into food, or looking for recipes or for restaurant reviews or just something new to read, you should check it out.
• This is kind of cool: in the same issue of Style magazine that profiled the Baltimore food blogs, our architect's kitchen was featured - hers is the fifth picture. In related news, our addition is flying along - the roof and siding are finished, deck is in the works, they'll be coming through the wall into the kitchen and dining room just after Thanksgiving and our cabinets will be delivered December 17th. There's a lot of excitement here. And soon to be a lot of dust.
• I think it's fun for my friends that I have a blog. Not so much so they can read it, but so when they come across something interesting, they don't have to write about it themselves, but they have somebody to share it with. My friend Sarah called me last week just to say: "I think pears are so underrated. I didn't think I liked them much, but I just ate one and it was so good. The texture was perfect." Personally, I agree, but I always knew I liked them. Sometime within the past year, I made a cool salad of pear, apple and Manchego cheese, all cut into evenly sized matchsticks. It was inspired by an apple and Manchego salad I had at Pazo almost two years ago. It's so unexpected because every piece looks pretty much the same - white, hard and stick-ish - but they all taste and feel different. You never know what you're going to get. I thought it was very cool. Almost too cutesy and clever, but Cooper liked how it tasted, too.
• Right now I am watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Seriously, who are these idiot chefs? That's all I ever think when I watch this show.

And that is all.