Gift Guide 2013 – The Kitchen Nazi Edition

~ Laura

I learned how to cook in a very tiny New York City kitchen. I had two overhead cabinets.  We jerry rigged two lower cabinets from IKEA. We never bothered to anchor the cabinets to the wall. They leaned against a wall with a piece of IKEA butcher block on top. After about five years, the cabinets sort of listed to one side. When you’re in grad school, you learn to make do.

We also learned how to keep a very minimalist kitchen. Few appliances and dishware, just the essentials. And we’ve maintained our system, even now we’re out in the burbs.

This is the original Apt. 11D kitchen system:

DSC_0034-29_edited-11. Dishes. We have one set of dishes and never, ever add anything random. Never any holiday themed dishware. We use Crate and Barrel’s maison set. I’ve used them for 16 years, though I had to replace the dinner plates last year. They’re light and thin, so they’ll fit in nicely into tiny cabinets. Food looks good on white plates. Mugs and cereal bowls are an exception. I use Anthropolgie’s Latte bowls, as cereal bowls and Fishs Eddy mugs.

2. Serving bowls and platters. I introduce color and fun with the serving dishes. I prefer blue and green, so everything matches. I ordered some Le Souk Ceramique bowls through One King’s Lane.  I like these serving bowls from West Elm, because they can be nuked. (As I was searching for things on Amazon, I stumbled upon these gems.)

3. Small items. I like these Art and Cook Bamboo Salad Serverswith Silicone Handles, because I have green accents all over the kitchen. Art and Cook also has a funky drying mat that I need.

4. Pots. A few years ago, I threw away all the hand-me-down pots and pans that were cluttering up my cabinets and honed down to one set that fits perfectly together and takes up very little cabinet space. I have the Cuisinart 77-10 Chef’s Classic Stainless 10-Piece Cookware Set. That set, combined with a few other essentials are all I need. Extra pots include  a roasting pan, omlette pan, and one more 7 quart pot.DSC_0042-26_edited-1

5. Appliances. I’m a huge Nazi about excessive kitchen appliances. If you have a good set of knives and a cutting board, then you don’t need 90 percent of the crap out there. I have about three or four exceptions: the KitchenAid Mixer, Cuisinart Immersion Hand Blender, and Cuisinart Food Processor.

I’ll add more to this later.

Published by Laura

14 thoughts on “Gift Guide 2013 – The Kitchen Nazi Edition”

  2. That is an amazing price for the Cuisinart cookware right now! I have the same set, but lucked out on getting most of the pieces when a co-worker moved to California and really pared down what she wanted to bring.

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  3. Laura said:

    “We have one set of dishes and never, ever add anything random. Never any holiday themed dishware.”

    I cruise the big city Craigslists quite a lot for dishes and there’s always somebody unloading a big lot of Spode Christmas plates, often in the box. In general, people are terrible about getting china and then never using it. The worst example of the unused china phenomenon I have ever seen was something I blogged this week–somebody was selling a set of Blue Willow that had been bought in 1967 and never used.

    One of the things I’ve done that I’m pleased with is to actually try not to have to much of the same pattern, but to use many different patterns in the same color–I own about 18 blue-and-white 10″ dinner plates, each with a different pattern and it looks great. The kids love looking at the plates. I can’t think of anything more dismal than to have a matched set of 100 pieces of Blue Willow or Blue Italian, even though I like the pattern.

    “I ordered some Le Souk Ceramique bowls through One King’s Lane.”

    I ordered some blue and white Le Souk Ceramique bowls last summer and was disappointed. Blue and white is kind of my thing, but it turned out that the Tunisian stuff looked pretty crude next to my blue-and-white Japanese ceramics, Russian gzhel’, Delft, and Spode. If rustic is your thing, it might work for you, but it’s not mine, and I couldn’t tell just from looking online at Amazon. (Amazon also sells a lot of Le Souk Ceramique.) The bowls I got looked like the product of a night of heavy drinking at the ceramic-painting studio.

    I have found that Japanese-made blue-and-white noodle bowls make really lovely serving bowls. I was very happy with the ones I ordered from Mrs. Lin’s Kitchen.

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    1. I also don’t try to match my china. I have all white, some with raised patterns, some without. I can seat 40 without resorting to paper plates. All serving dishes are clear glass (some with patterns, some without). It is just easier to not worry about having enough of one.

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  4. I will confess that our kitchenware is mostly from Target, and most of our plates are from Target. My kids are in high school but we all still drop things a lot — my husband and me included. (I also painted our kitchen to match our Target plates. Is that pathetic or what?)

    One of the reasons I’m looking forward to being an empty nester is that we’re going to redo the bathroom that the girls trashed with spilled nail polish, and the fact that we might get some dishes that aren’t from Target. (and yes, we used the Target plates at Thanksgiving. I am so embarassed! NOw I’ll never get my own lifestyle show!)

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    1. “(I also painted our kitchen to match our Target plates. Is that pathetic or what?)”

      No, that’s adorable.

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  6. I have a lovely set of Blue Willow that we don’t use that often because I chose trusting my small children to clear the table themselves over worrying about my lovely plates, so Louisa, we also eat on Target plates! I’m thinking when the girls are a little older (11 now), maybe we’ll be able to switch back. I also have holiday dishware for Christmas, but I store it in a Tupperware bin in the basement, and it makes my heart sing to break it out again for usage, so I don’t mind the hassle of dragging it up the stairs each year.

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  7. re: a dutch oven. I have a hand-me down. A gold 70’s dutch oven. But I usually just use my roasting pan with sheets of aluminum foil, because I cook for large numbers of people and dutch ovens are too small.

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  8. I have Laura’s aesthetic in theory, but in practice am attracted to shiny objects.

    Our regular plates are Corelle. We like that they are so lightweight and durable.

    I actually tried to stick to one set of plates long ago (square PB cream colored plates). But, though they were cool when I bought them, they became too ordinary.

    So, I added to them with a great set of blue/white chinese style plates (which came in different patterns, I love that, too) from Horchow.

    Then, a shiny set of black and red square plates (they are very cute, though from target) were added. So, I have 3 sets of 12 place settings. The 3 sets go OK together (asian aesthetic, square, . . . .).

    The big flaw is that I also have a handful of other place settings that just called to me.

    The biggest flaw in my plates is that they are stoneware. I liked the heft when I was younger, but have decided I have to switch to lighter weight plates that aren’t Corelle.

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    2. We started as newlyweds 15 years ago with some plain white IKEA dishes. I recently had to buy some more non-matching white IKEA dishes for everyday, as we’d had by that time substantial breakage and some unsightly staining. I’m reasonably happy with unmatched white dishes, although I wish that my last two lunch plates from the old set would hurry up and break already.

      I’d always liked Russian gzhel’ (it’s a hand-painted blue-and-white ceramic), but the last few years, I’ve been using any extra funds to branch out into more dishwasher-safe blue-and-white ceramics.

      http://russian-crafts.com/gzhel-porcelain.html

      I’ve got 18 10″ blue-and-white Spode plates, each one different (the detail on the first two sets here is absolutely lovely, the third set is cute but the detail is somewhat less crisp).

      I’ve also got four Blue Willow dessert plates and four Blue Italian, but I don’t care to have too much of a single pattern.

      I’ve got four large blue and white Japanese noodle bowls (good for serving) and probably about 19 blue and white Japanese rice bowls in different sizes (very nice as small serving bowls or for dessert). And then there’s the aforementioned Le Souk Ceramique salad bowls, which I am planning on unloading at the earliest opportunity.

      I can’t say I NEED anything else, ceramic-wise, but I am eventually planning on getting some more blue-and-white serving dishes via Craigslist, and those are really expensive new.

      Everybody needs a hobby.

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  9. My other frustration is that I loved my flatware, a big set purchased 10+ years ago from Pottery Barn (Tivoli Stainless). But, they don’t make it anymore! and all my little forks have started to disappear. I can find it in “replacement flatware”, but, really, really can’t justify paying $27 for a fork.

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  10. I concur with bj (I think it was bj) that Corelle is a really fine everyday pattern. I just bought two more 10 oz. white Corelle bowls, as I wanted a non-plastic dish the right size for heating up baby-sized portions of stuff in the microwave.

    Another wonderful item is this microwave mini-steamer from Progressive:

    It’s just $8, and it’s such a handy size for a college student or a single adult. I use mine all the time for steaming frozen vegetables for baby. After years of mushy microwaved veggies, it’s such a step up.

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