That said, in the last few years we’ve made some acquisitions, large and small, that have been indispensable. And a few others that… well, we could do without. The large food processor’s terrific, for instance, but we only use it occasionally, and it doesn’t do anything I couldn’t do with my hands and a good knife. The slowcooker, too, isn’t used as often as I’d like, and it’s a beast (we store it under a dresser in our bedroom), but I can at least be comforted in knowing that the one thing it does can’t be done by anything else in the house.

Our biggest purchase was a microwave, and while we did fine without it for eight years, it’s made life as parents so much easier that I’m annoyed we held out so long. But everyone knows microwaves are awesome. I thought I’d share some items whose usefulness may surprise you.

The Cherry Pitter

Normally, single-use gadgets would be a no-no. The #2 rule of space-saving is everything must do at least two things. (#1 is Put Stuff Away.) But I do love cherries, and since cherry season is at its height, I’ve been buying a two-pound bag every week. Usually I’m fine with the chew-and-spit method of pitting, but Eliza has also developed a taste for the plump little fruits. After an hour of slicing, pitting, and serving cherry after cherry, only to be faced with the double-whammy of sign language and a perfectly clear pronunciation of “MORE!” I began thinking about getting a cherry pitter. So we stopped in Williams-Sonoma and spent $12.95 on the Oxo Cherry & Olive Pitter.

It's also an OLIVE pitter, so technically it's double-use!

Not only does it work beautifully, but it’s the most fun I’ve ever had with a gadget. Put in the cherry, squeeze the handle, and POP! out the pit. It’s even more fun than a paper-hole punch or a shredder. OK, maybe not as fun as a shredder. But it’s pretty damned fun.

The Apple Corer

This one, I got for work, just because I didn’t want to have a knife at my desk, and I ended up bringing it home and hugging and kissing and loving it to itty-bits. The Oxo Apple Corer and Divider‘s got nothing on the cherry pitter for fun, but it IS satisfying: center the hole over the core, press down, and SHUNK! eight perfect apple wedges. Of course, it’s a bitch to clean and sometimes I feel as though I’m using all my upper-body strength to push it down, but nothing else cores and slices an apple as efficiently as this little baby. And only $10.

I wonder if it works as a cookie cutter.

The Electric Kettle

This one will come as the biggest surprise, because not only does it seem silly–you can boil water in anything–but it also takes up precious counter space. That said, spend a few weeks in New Zealand and you’ll be hooked. (Another friend of ours went to NZ, came back and bought an electric kettle. We did the same thing.) They’re everywhere there–campgrounds, hotel rooms–and you quickly learn that stovetop kettles are pretty, but they’re loud and constantly in the way, and one never really knows how long it takes to boil different amounts of water in the microwave (I don’t, anyway.).

Watch the water boil! Science is magic!

We use a Neapolitan-style coffee maker (I’ll post about it someday), which means we have to boil the water separately, and the Capresso kettle boils 4 cups of water in a snap. You can SEE the water boiling, too, which is very cool, and the best part? The switch snaps off when it hits a full boil, so there’s no boiling down or interminable whistling. We use it every day for coffee, but I’ve also used it for boiling water for instant couscous and oatmeal, hot toddies, and pretty much whatever else requires a big zap of piping-hot water. And we have reclaimed all four burners on the stove.

Honorable Mention: The Melon Baller

Ah, the humble melon baller. I always thought of it as that poor little rejected gadget, the one that gets bought for one well-intentioned purchase of a watermelon, and then sinks to the bottom of the utensil drawer until it lands in a garage sale bin.

I even sometimes use it for its intended purpose.

But a few years back I discovered a much better use for the melon baller, and I use it at least once a week: small-food extractor. Olives, cornichons, maraschino cherries… anything that’s sitting in a jar of liquid can be fished out, liquid-free.We have the Messermeister Pro-Touch 30mm Melon Baller, and by the way: why do all kitchen gadgets have names longer than their actual length?

Note the slight widening in the space at the top of the door.

The numbers on the oven dial had completely worn off, so I spent an afternoon heating the oven with a remote meat thermometer inside, estimating roughly where 350 and 400 were. I used a mailing label to fashion a new label.

I didn't mark "broil," but I assumed it was just at the far end of the dial.

A month or so ago, I noticed that some kind of tubing was hanging down inside the oven. I finally demanded we call the super and ask for repairs, at the very least. He asked the brand name. I had to spell it for him, as he’d never heard of it. Turns out it’s no longer in production.

We estimate that this stove is roughly as old as I am.

The repairman took one look and said, “Yeah, we’re just measuring for a new stove.” I rejoiced. This morning, at 9:30 AM, they removed our old stove, and we got to see what twenty years’ worth of hiding looks like. Brace yourself.

I'm sure the blue thing is a milk jug cap, but I'll be damned if I know what the pink ring is.

He left us alone with the mess for a half hour. David used the dustpan to reduce the bulk of the dust; I got out the paint scraper, the orange-based cleaning spray, the Bon Ami, rubber gloves and a yellow scrubby, and got to work.

I'd call that miraculous.

They returned and installed the stove, which is so new it still had the plastic over the dials. And we paid $0 for it. Well, OK, the price is built into our rent. Well, actually, given that we have rent control and David’s been living here 14 years, the price is built into our new neighbor’s rent. Renting ain’t so bad.

Does it not glow with the light of a thousand golden souffles?

I think I might try making a souffle tonight.

Only one more day to fill out the survey for a chance to win $25 on Amazon! I’ll keep the survey open, of course, but after tomorrow, the drawing closes:

The thing is, unless you have 1) a housekeeper; 2) a lot of spare time; and/or 3) extreme motivation, like, say, obsessive-compulsive disorder, grime builds up. I’ve long been thinking about hiring a housekeeper for five or so hours to come and do a full scrubdown of our kitchen and other rooms, because anytime we try to do it, we get distracted within ten minutes, and the resulting 6″ x 6″ clean spot just makes the rest of the wall look grimier in comparison. We cook a lot, and as I said, we have no hood over the stove, and no fan, and while the window is airy and allows for some ventilation, it also allows for the usual amount of city soot to come in and stick to the walls.

Add to that the genius of leaving the wall behind the stove bare drywall, which is nothing if not absorptive, and you get this mess:

And that's AFTER scrubbing it down.

I had just finished a quickie project yesterday (covering our garbage can ledge with contact paper; I’m not sharing that picture because I know you don’t want to see my garbage can) when I looked at that spotted, splotched, dingy wall and just couldn’t take it any more. “Do you think we could put contact paper up as a backsplash?” I asked David.

“Would it melt?”

“I won’t put it all the way down to the stove. And we can watch to see if it burns or anything.”

“Go for it.”

We’ve talked in the past about installing sheet metal back there, but–prepare to be even MORE grossed out–we were both worried that bugs would thrive in such a tight, packed space. (Roaches, while not frequent visitors to Rocket City Digs, do occasionally rear their ugly little feelers every few months.) We had some spare contact paper from some previous projects, so heck, why not? If it begins to melt, we’ll take it down. We don’t own the place.

So I scrubbed down the wall as best I could, measured the space, and applied the paper. Anyone who’s worked with contact paper knows it’s a pain in the tucchus: it folds over on itself, sticks to everything, and has an annoying habit of developing un-poppable bubbles. But I wasn’t worried about getting this completely perfect, as we didn’t even know if it would actually stick. And once I got it up, I had to carve out the shelf brackets with an exacto knife, a project that, in my unsteady hands, isn’t exactly exact. But, eh. Like I said: not permanent, and our primary goal was not perfection so much as “Cleaner and cleanable.”

Next up: bleach the toaster oven.

Generally speaking, I’m pleased with the results.

The yellow and white check brightens the corner considerably, and I’m thinking about tackling the wall to the left of the toaster oven, once I get more contact paper. It’d be nice to have a little border where the paper meets the wall, but I have no thoughts on how we’d do that (other than a different-colored paper?). The best part: contact paper wipes down easily. Huzzah. No more scrub-scrub-scrub and seeing a grayish spot on the wall where the drywall absorbs the moisture.

Renters, rejoice!

P.S. In case you’re worried about the health of our children, rest easy knowing the bathroom is probably the cleanest room in the house; it gets a good scrubdown on a weekly basis.

To top it all off, pregnancy heartburn has returned with a vengeance, so the idea of eating leftover short ribs has my stomach roiling in anticipation, and it’s not happy grumbles.

So last night, I stared into the refrigerator, wondering what I could pull together that would be mild on the stomach AND get rid of some of the containers that were stacking up. The short ribs and leftover gnocchi sauce went in the freezer, next to the cioppino; I’m hoping to have the stomach for an all-day sauce on New Year’s (that will also use up the pre-rolled meatballs I’ve been storing in the freezer).Leftover mashed potatoes are always a puzzle: they’re never as much fun eaten from the microwave, and I’ve had bad luck with potato pancakes in the past. We had a full head of organic broccoli on the verge of going gooey (I don’t even remember what my good intentions were for that), a few pallid celery stalks next to the fresh bunch, one lonely carrot waiting to be usurped by a new bag, a few tablespoons of sour cream in another container…. hmm.

Another use for leftover mashed potatoes.

Brilliant, right?! I’m so proud of myself. Potatoes are often used to thicken soup, and mashed potatoes already have built-in deliciousness, what with the butter and the sour cream and milk and salt. The broccoli soup came together in less than 30 minutes, and three grilled cheeses and two dollops of sour cream later, we all sat together at the table, yummying our way down to empty bowls. (OK, actually, one of us yummied her way down to a few crumbs of sandwich, and screamed when we attempted to feed her the soup. But she DID lick her spoon clean, so, little smartypants, you can’t fool us: You liked the broccoli soup.)

End game: we finished off the mashed potatoes; sour cream; old celery and carrot; and white bread loaf. (White bread is a holiday treat in our household. If I bought it frequently I’d never eat anything else.) AND I have a new use for leftover taters! Happy New Year!

But sometimes, one has to chuck form out the window settle on pure function. Such as it is with babyproofing. I imagine it’s the same even in a big home, but in a small apartment, there’s no room to corral the kid once she’s mobile, and it becomes a constant game of trying to stay a step ahead. I’m reminded of the scene in Jurassic Park in which Robert Muldoon, Human Action Figure, tells about how the velociraptors have been attacking the fences to test their integrity. “They remember.”

That’s her. She remembers. When she’s looking at you, she’s figuring things out. How can I open this drawerful of batteries and swallow one whole? How can I dismantle the printer-copier? How can I open and close this door until my fingers get squished? And most important, How can I get into the kitchen? So here we are, left alone in the raptor paddock, trying to get all the systems back online before she figures it out. It needs to be fast, and it’s often not pretty. You’ve seen the movie. One false move and you end up stuffed in a locker, missing an arm.

Of course, all the solutions below are temporary, which is to say, we’ll keep them until we figure out a more attractive way to keep her from injuring herself. Parents have two options: babyproof ahead of time and raise the kid in a padded cell, or manage the danger spots as they become apparent. We’ve chosen the latter; here are the results. (I’ll update when we come up with our Pricier, Better, More Attractive Solutions.)

Tie It Down

Remember the accordion door to the nursery? Lovely item, but as I suspected, it’s irresistible to her current open-and-close habit. Same goes for the credenza drawers. In the former case, a couple of hooks and a bungee cord keep the door immobilized. In the latter case, a long string fastened with a little push-catch (the kind on hoodie strings) keeps the drawers closed and easily reopened. When it came to the credenza doors, we just moved half of the photo albums and filled it with her toys. Gotta let the kid have some fun.

The ol' bungee-cord-strapping-down-the-accordion-door trick.

If you can't beat 'em, put some toys in it.

She can almost get her fingers pinched, but at least she can't take out the chokables hidden inside.

MacGyver a Pegboard

Yup, the pegboard’s back–it’s not just for kitchens and tool sheds. (Especially if you happen to have three or four pegboards stacked in a closet.) In this case, we have pegboards, hook screws and that ol’ favorite, the twisty tie. The printer was the first thing we babyproofed, by the by–it started on the bottom shelf, then moved up, then was covered by a piece of wood slid in front, and when she got around that, we went with the pegboard solution. As you can see, she’s clever enough to know how to work it, but she doesn’t have the strength or balance to get under it to the goods. Yet.

Here’s the printer pegboard:

Damn you, reflective surface in which she can see her face!

And at the base of our bar, where we keep our glass jars:

Use a… deli container?

So we know the curse of the pre-war apartment is the Curse of One Outlet Per Room, but corollary to that curse is “All electrical workings shall live OUTSIDE THE WALL!” That means several things: 1) We have wires everywhere; 2) The few outlets we do have are loaded with heavy-duty power-strip plugs; and 3) The outlets and power cords stick out at least four inches from the wall, making them both grabbable and even an excellent boosting mechanism. On top of, of course, gnawable.

I came home one day from work to find this ingenious, awful-looking contraption:

"Deli Container With Outlet" -- ca. 2010

I can’t be entirely sure, but I think that had fruit salad in it the day before. The weird thing is, it works. The plastic makes a nice noise but it’s too much of a bother to get around (for now). By the by, if anyone has connections on a giant, box-shaped outlet cover that hinges up and allows us to get at the plugs underneath, let me know.

The Classic Gate

No babyproofed home would be complete without the wooden baby gate. We have one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. She really, really dislikes them both.

First you put me in a clown suit. Now you won't let me dig through the recycling?

Most babyproofing, we’ve found, is more a matter of habit: don’t leave the coffee mug on the coffee table. Don’t leave the bedroom door open (unless refolding your clothes is a favorite pasttime). Develop an eye for chokables–the current standard is to put it in a film canister, which makes me wonder: 30 years from now, how will Eliza test what’s chokable? Oh, right. App.

I knew from the start we’d need to add a safety belt, a hunch confirmed by the first few weeks’ worth of use: the Agent of Chaos found that she could turn herself completely around in the chair, and if she did manage to keep both of her fat little legs under the tray, it only took a bit of squirming to start the inevitable scooch-to-fall event that would confirm that buying a vintage high chair was a terrible idea. It was beginning to seem as though we’d need to invest in a new high chair.

She's annoyed she can't pick at the cover anymore. Doesn't she look furious?

Enter RocketMan and His ToolKit Of Tricks, and me with my twice-yearly urge to be mildly crafty, and Deceptachair got a makeover. First up: a safety strap. RM never takes pictures while he’s working (WTF, I keep saying; doesn’t he know the blogosphere NEEDS him?), so I’ll do my best to describe the process:

• Get clear plastic tubing, the kind that college kids use in beer bongs. Slit it lengthwise.
• Insert a light dog chain.
• Screw in a loop hook under the tray.
• Hook it in place.
• Realize it looks like you’re strapping your daughter in with a chain, and cover it all up in red decorative tape.
• Cross “Will you PLEASE make a safety chain so she doesn’t kill herself? Like, today? PLEASE?” off the whiteboard.

Yes, we have a whiteboard. If I could marry a whiteboard, RocketMan would have some competition.

Enter me, Queen of the Craft Fail. I’m not getting into all the swearing and futzing and muttered “I HATE yous” that went into the faux-upholstery; all you need to know is, I had some leftover contact paper, scissors, and an exacto knife. And now we have a newly covered Deceptachair, clean and fresh, and if we ever want to show the world its gray faux-flannel underthings, I’m pretty sure some Goo Gone will tear away all my work in no time at all.

One of the charms of Julie/Julia is that Julie Powell had the kind of NYC apartment that makes parents’ hair turn gray. As crappy as the neighborhood was, though, and inasmuch as she often had no water and had holes in her ceiling, she had a big kitchen. (At least it sounds like she did.) I don’t. And if you’re reading this blog for any reason other than entertainment, I assume you don’t have a big kitchen, either. So here’s my combo food/space blog: keeping a well-stocked pantry in a 42′ square feet of kitchen.

Pantry cooking, to clarify, is planning your next meal by saying, "What have we got?" instead of "What do we need?" At its purest it’s leftover reinvention, an art in which RocketMan has a black belt. We don’t have the luxury of a chest freezer, or, indeed an actual pantry, and keeping certain items in stock all the time is vital to our sanity. (Fortunately, we do have the option of walking across the street when we’re out of some staple–as opposed to loading up the car and driving 15 minutes to get milk–so urban living does have its bonuses.) Last night, for instance, RocketMan went to run some errands and brought home a box of fresh cheese ravioli from Lucca, a delightful surprise. A half hour later, we had their fantastic cheesiness, dressed in a bechamel sauce with white wine, pancetta, peas, and lemon zest, atop a bed of arugula. And, of course, topped with crunchy salt.

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all (something I risk every time I open my mouth), I thought I’d offer advice on keeping a well-stocked pantry for such meals on the fly. Keep a group of harmonious ingredients on tap at all times, and you can make a harmonious meal. Of course, yours will differ, as it depends on your favorite cuisine. We lean toward American, Italian and Mexican food, but if you’re a big fan of cooking Chinese food, you’d be much more likely to keep, say, star anise in the house instead of fennel seed. But you get the idea.

Here’s my recommendation of When It’s Running Low, Buy It Now Staples:

IN THE REFRIGERATOR
Also known as "perishables."

• Milk
• Eggs
• Unsalted butter
• Sliced wheat bread
• Large flour tortillas
• Cheddar cheese
• Parmesan cheese (ungrated – it stays moist longer)
• Boxed white wine
  Boxed, indeed! Boxed wine has come a long way since Franzia. I cook with it so frequently (I don’t actually drink much white) that having an easy-pour spout is convenient; plus it’s in a vacuum bag so it stays useable much longer.

IN THE CRISPER
These four items are non-negotiable. I don’t often eat celery and carrots on their own, but they end up in almost everything.

• Celery
• Carrots
• Romaine (washed and in a tupperware container lined with paper towel)
• Italian parsley

ON THE FRIDGE DOOR
These condiments are what’s truly Mediterranean-specific–someone who’s really into cooking Indian food will likely not find capers a required item on the door. That said, this is probably the most important of all these little lists. Condiments last a long time, so if you’ve really got an empty refrigerator, but you have an array of items below, all you need for a delicious dinner is, say, eggs.

• A tube of tomato paste: If you EVER use tomato paste, GET THE TUBE.
• Pickled Mediterranean stuff (Capers, Olives, Cornichons, Pepperoncini)
• Pickled jalapenos
• Condiments: Dijon mustard, jam, mayonnaise, ketchup, soy sauce
• Any, or all, of the following hot sauces: Hunan Chili; Cholulua; Tabasco; Sriracha

IN THE FREEZER
Our freezer is not large, but it has room enough for these goods. When I buy meat, I always separate the pieces into individual servings and separate them with waxed paper before freezing. OK, not always, I didn’t do that with the sliced pancetta recently, and last night spent five minutes cutting a hunk of sliced frozen pancetta from the larger hunk of sliced frozen pancetta.

• Pancetta
• Bacon
• Frozen veggies: peas , pearl onions, corn
• Hot Italian sausage: This is the ultimate shortcut. No time? Squeeze the meat out of an Italian sausage link, sautee it with some canned diced tomatoes, and serve it up with the pasta. Delish!
• Frozen bread rolls: This was a recent discovery at Whole Foods. Usually I’d buy six dinner rolls from ACME bread company, and we’d wrap them individually in foil and freeze them for the nights when we didn’t have fresh bread in the house.
• Ground beef
• Chicken breasts

ON THE SHELVES
We don’t have an actual pantry, but we do have plenty of shelves.

• Onions: Yellow onions, shallots, garlic
• Citrus: Lemons, limes, orange
• Potatoes
• Apple
• Tomatoes: Note: we usually get hothouse roma tomatoes out of season, and only occasionally.
• Variety of vinegars: White wine, red wine, white, balsamic
• Oils: Olive, Canola, and spray olive and canola
• Boxed pasta: Usually it’s farfalle, orzo and rotini that we keep on hand.
• Boxed chicken broth

CANNED
Don’t let the food nazis fool you. Canned food is indispensable, unless you always plan meals 24 hours in advance and thusly have time to soak the beans.

• Tomatoes
  Most cooking magazines and chefs recommend getting canned tomatoes out of season–they’re picked at the height of freshness, and as long as you don’t expect to slice them, they’re perfect for sauces, salsas, etc. We usually have a few cans of diced and whole on hand, always packed in juice, never in sauce.
• Beans: Black, Pinto, Kidney, Cannellini
• Tuna packed in oil

SPICE RACK
The spice rack is the backbone of pantry cooking. When you have a good spice rack, you can make anything. Like I said, we tend toward Mediterranean flavors, which is pretty obvious in the list below.

• Mediterranean herbs: Oregano, basil, tarragon, thyme, red pepper flakes, Herbes de Provence, dill seed and weed
• Mexican spices: Cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, paprika
• Fresh ground black pepper (ALWAYS fresh ground!)
• Variety of salt: Kosher, large-crystal kosher, Fleur de Sel

That’s not everything, but that’s just about everything we need for a spontaneous Italianish dish. I’d like to expand in favor of some East Indian spices (garam masala, for instance) but these are our standards.

BULK
We buy a lot of items in bulk, right from the bin, and it’s a great way to stock long-term staples.

• Flour
• Rice
• Arborio rice
• Sugar
• Brown sugar

So that’s it, folks. We keep all those items on hand, at all times, in our tiny kitchen. The list looks really long (and boring) now that I’ve typed it up, but it’s only half of what we have at the moment. From this list, you can make mac and cheese; burgers and fries; all-day meat ragu; or Gateau de Crepes, if you’re so inclined.

And just to end with an especially know-it-all bang, here’s a recipe for tuna salad, my favorite "I have ten minutes to cook and eat" meal:

• 2 cans tuna in oil, drained
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained
• 1 finely diced carrot
• 1 finely diced celery stalk
• Chopped parsley
• 1/2 finely diced apple
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 Tbsp mayonnaise
• The following herbs to taste: fennel seed, dill, dill seed, and celery salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Large-crystal kosher salt
• 2 large flour tortillas

Combine all the above ingredients, ending with the salt to taste–taste carefully on the herbs and salt! Wrap in a tortilla as you would a burrito. Presto: pantry lunch!

If you remember from way back in January, I started this blog by giving Le Tour Grande of our kitchen—all 7′ by 6′ of it. While everything above the counter was in reasonably good condition (everything organized and more or less reachable), I didn’t get into the details of the below-the-waist goings-on. One particular corner of our little cucina was particularly shameful: the space between the stove and the wall.

In any home, I wouldn’t want to go fishing around behind the stove; in an old apartment, with no hood over the stove, no counters flush with the stovetop, and all manner of old electrical wiring and piping, no man can know what festers back there. So I’ll simplify by saying Grease + Dust + City Soot * Unreachable, Uncovered Space = Mung. (Mung was a word we used during my NYC days. Two kinds of dirt exist in New York: Schmutz and mung. Schmutz brushes off, like dust. Mung does not.)

Our particular mung magnet was occupied by a little shelving unit (built by RocketMan) that, in any other kitchen, would have been a lovely butcher block. Four wood shelves, supporting by pipes, with wheels at the bottom. Because the sides were open, though, anything that went on the shelves was open to the Mung Invasion, and anything that went in the back of the shelves—crockpot, muffin tin, empty jars—came out feeling a bit like a sticky kiwi. And because I have the memory retention of a two-year-old, I would find myself thinking “We should get a muffin tin” every time I went into Sur La Table.

Enter RocketMan. We decided to build a new shelving unit that would better meet our needs:

• Enclosed, so as to keep the mung at bay;
• Flush with the stovetop, so as to prevent splashbacks and food from falling in the crack;
• Sliding shelving, so we could reach deeper items without having to move the unit or dig for it;
• Wheeled

I’ll spare you the photos of what the space looked like after we pulled out the shelf. People have open, airy kitchens will be horrified by our seeming lack of housekeeping skills, and people with kitchens like mine already know exactly what I mean; let’s leave it there. With our specs in hand, I headed off to code software, and RM headed off to schlep lumber. Mine is a rough life.

The Miracle of the Sliding Shelves

Several trips to Cole’s Hardware later, and we had this finished product. It’s light; it’s enclosed; it’s exactly the height of the stove. Lastly, wonder of wonder, miracles of miracles, it has shelves. That glide. Those of you who do not find this miraculous have never wrestled with the wooden drawers in our kitchen’s only built-in: drawers that have no wheels, no brackets, no metal innards, and therefore require nothing less than brute strength to yank them open. And here, in my sixth month of pregnancy, my husband hath hunted and gathered, and brought to our homestead shelves that glide frictionlessly, like a Penguin on a freshly Zambonied rink.

It’s a simple construction: Two sheets of plywood for the sides, pegboard for the back; plywood shelves; and basic wheeled drawer slides. The first time I pulled out the shelf to grab a can, I had to repeat the process three or four times to confirm that, yes, RocketGirl, there is a Santa Claus, and he wears a toolbelt.

The Aftershocks

After filling the shelves, I turned to see we’d actually committed to a real reorganization of the kitchen. We have so many items on shelves that to put them in an easily accessible space, out of sight, cleared off at least three shelves, and allowed us to move the heavy objects from the highest shelf above the door (the one I feared would cause death by bucket o’couscous). And RM hasn’t even started his second shelving project, in which he performs the miracle of Getting the Cookie Sheets Off the Floor and Onto a Real Shelf. He did, however, throw in this blender shelf.

Here’s the price breakdown. The wood for the sides came from another shelving unit in the kitchen (the one he’s rebuilding next), and the wheels came from the original piece.

Although I’m not drinking as much as I used to, RocketMan still enjoys a cocktail, and our friends certainly enjoy when he shakes up a Manhattan or a Negroni at our home bar. For a long time I’d wanted a supercool art deco bar, or a 70s-style bar like my grandparents had (of which I cannot find a reasonable facsimile). 

Obviously, space and cash stood in our way. Clearing out six square feet of floor space for a beautiful piece of furniture was a hard sell, especially when we had other needs beyond the basic bottle placement. Space prevents us from being collectors—we don’t even own martini glasses—and we needed room for wine as well as cookbooks. (We’re not wine collectors, either; we have four bottles we’re saving, and other than that, the drinks get drunk.)

We’d inherited two hutches from a friend–very basic cube-shaped stained-wood hutches, the kind of furniture that you never, ever notice. At least I never did. I knew something held up our vacuum lamp, but it never registered that it was actually a piece of furniture in its own right. So RocketMan strapped on his toolbelt, threw together a bookshelf, tinkered with the hutches, and here’s the result.

It stands in the corner of our living room, right next to the kitchen, for easy cookbook/booze access.

MY FAVORITE FEATURES

Pretty, pretty bottles! Back to Tap Plastics for this piece of translucent plastic–cut by the kind folks at the store, and costing a whopping $15. It’s hinged to the hutch with basic hardware, and tethered by a piece of wire pulled through a small hole drilled in the corner. That’s a skeleton hand fastened to the wire. It closes with a simple magnetic latch. Add a fluorescent light to the back wall of the hutch, and presto—some nice mood lighting and instant decoration. The switch to the light is attached to a light switch that controls all our low evening lighting. (That’s another blog.)
DIY wine rack Below the liquor is our wine rack. It’s exactly what it looks like: sawed-off cardboard tubing glued together and stacked. I’ve never seen anything like it. Only drawback: larger bottles like Pinot Noir and sparkling wine will not fit in these holes, so they go on the bottom shelf, which is tubing-free.
Handy cookbooks For a long time, our cookbooks were on the top shelf of our kitchen—well out of my reach and as a result, underused. When I use cookbooks I like to sit on the couch and read them, spread out a few on the coffee table, compare notes. This solution was perfect: well within reach and between the kitchen and the couch. We have a few more cookbooks on other bookshelves; these are my favorites. If you’re a little handy with a drill and saw, the construction is simple. It’s all pine, and the side panels have the adjustable holes built in; the shelf is another piece of pine resting on supports. Another piece of wood shores up the back, and metal brackets fastens the whole shebang to the top hutch. A pencil-thin fluorescent light attached to the bookshelf illuminates the workspace. No bar is complete without a cutting board. Knives are right around the corner on the magnetic strip. The juicer initially seemed like a frivolous wedding registry idea, but it turns out we love it! Nothing like a fresh mimosa to start your weekend, and this baby does the trick. FYI, those are our dinner napkins (we eat at the coffee table). And the little green bottle is cheap liquor our friend brought back from the Beijing Olympics. The other bottle she gave us smelled like candy-flavored lighter fluid, so we’re just enjoying the green bottle for now.

I used to complain about the size, but I love it. Everything is in sight; everything is in reach. It’s like a more versatile version of the appetizer station in Hell’s Kitchen. Sure, sometimes I’d like if RocketMan could carve a chicken comfortably while I mash the potatoes, but you get used to small elbow room.

What really makes our kitchen work, though, is the customization. 

My favorite features

Extended counters! Not only have counter extensions quadrupled the original counter space, but it also resulted in what is, IMO, the most ingenius thing ever to hit a kitchen, large or small: the built-in garbage hole paired with a full cutting-board surface. The countertop is made from the same plastic you find in basic cutting boards, bought at Tap Plastics for all of $40. The surface was originally plywood, but a leaky faucet and the need for a cutting board (extra space! Boo!) inspired RocketMan to take the plastic route. It’s easy to clean–no oils required–and sanitary; I cut chicken AND veggies on it. (Not in that order, so don’t worry.) Occasionally the surface stains a bit, and a little Bar Keeper’s Friend whitens it up well enough. Warning, though: If you take out the trash mid-cooking, don’t forget to replace the bag. Not to say I’ve swept a pile of brussel sprout leaves into an empty hole or anything; just making sure YOU don’t.      Another quick note: love the magnetic knife strip. Brilliant invention. See the corkboard? I tack up recipes (CI’s French Chicken in a Pot, in this case), notes, any other reminders we need.
The slightly less spectacular, but no less useful, counter extension is on the opposite side of the sink. It’s a plywood shelf unit that joins the sink to the fridge (really, people; why build the sink a foot away from the fridge?). It’s probably not stable enough to stand on its own, but does fine with the support of three walls surrounding it. A flower pot weighted with stones is our utensil holder. We experimented with every drying rack that’s out there until we finally went with this basic model. This isn’t the exact version we have, but it’s close: Bamboo Wood Plate Rack. It takes up very little space and holds enough dishes for our needs. See the writing near the top of our fridge? That’s our grocery list. A dry-erase marker is Velcro-stuck to the side for easy access. The orange and black mats are the kind bars use to keep floors from gettin’ all slippy in the liquor. A similar rack is on the refrigerator, for drying glasses. Did I mention RocketMan is a bartender?
The bottom shelf–OK, the floor–is for cutting boards and cookie sheets, big flat stuff we can wash easily. Middle shelf: Cereal, and in the back, the blender. He’s a bartender, but he’s not big into the daiquiris.
Pegboard! Julia Child was right–pegboards rock the kitchen. While we decided polka dots were more fun than outlines of our tools, it works as well as she suggested it would.  All of the smaller, more frequently-used items at the bottom, within easy reach; the mandolin requires a stepstool. (BTW, I recommend everything you see here, including the melon baller–it’s a great tool from getting olives out of tall jars!)  As you can see, on each side of the pegboard are simple, Container Store wire racks–wall racks on the left, grid system on the right.  Keyword here is modular! FYI, I’m leaning as far back over the opposite counter as I can to get these three photos.
Shelves, shelves, shelves! For a while there, I’d come home from work and spend ten minutes looking for the sugar, or the couscous, or the tea; turns out it had a new shelf. We’ve more or less maxed out the potential shelf space in the kitchen, and it’s the last place I’d want to be in an earthquake (death by couscous jar is not how I want to go), but when you need the space, you need the space!      We love the stackable, square pop containers from the Container Store (there’s that name again). The wood mostly comes from Cole Hardware–just your basic stained plywood.  Doesn’t the watering can look pretty?
Hang it up! In a kitchen, I find few things more frustrating than getting on my knees to dig in a dark cupboard through stacks of frickin’ pots and pans. And then ANOTHER stack for the lids. Not only can it be nothing but bad for the pots, but it’s a monstrous pain in the back, literally. And dark cupboards creep me out–dark corners invite insects. Hang it from the ceiling, stick it in a wall, anywhere–hanging your pots will save loads of counter and cabinet space, they look attractive, they’re easier to get–just do it!  Flower pot screwed into the wall–wooden spoons–and the other hanging utensils. It’s a theme. The shelf above the stove? Also plywood. I do recommend you only include non-perishables or frequently-used items above the stove, especially if you don’t have a hood (we don’t). Vinegar gets cooked in its bottles, and that lovely oil you use as a topper at the end of pasta dishes? The bottle becomes coated in a thick rime of kitchen!schmeg.  In the foreground: the little hickeydo stuck to the column. It’s our instant-read thermometer. RocketMan loves him some sticky Velcro, and I love him for it.

Addition: I found this amazing Kitchen Armoire on the blog Small Space Living. It’s almost $10k, but if anyone out there buys it, promise me you’ll name it Optimus Prime.