Organizing Spices

My milchig spice grinder needed refilling.  The evening before, I had tried to season halibut fillets to pan-fry for supper.  Some olive oil to coat, a splash of salt, and a few grinds of pepper on each surface.  It needed little more.  To get the waning volume of peppercorns to grind, I had to shake the grinder a few times to redistribute those on the bottom.  Seasoning was scant but adequate.  I have a pareve grinder and ground pepper in its tin, but what I did would suffice for supper.

This morning I opened the closet with milchig dishes.  The salt shaker and pepper mill sit to the right of the plates, lowest shelf, in my line of sight.   I could see the near depletion of the peppercorns through the transparent plastic grinder.  All my spices have homes in the pantry, a middle shelf to the left.  My system for dealing with seasonings could use a big revision.  Basically, I pull out what I need for various recipes as I need them.  For Thanksgiving, my biggest annual preparation event, I will go through much of the collection.  As I locate a spice jar needed for a recipe, I relocate it to the dining room table.  When all accounted for, each seasoning gets placed with the recipes that require them.  My storage system is not entirely random, though.  There are shelves for the more expensive and frequently used spices.  On the back ledge I keep meat seaonings, poultry and beef, premixed blends apparently taste tested by food scientists who create a hedon index before scaling up the combination for mass production.  I use Old Bay for many fish preparations.  That has a dedicated conspicuous place.  Most though, get used, then returned to the spice shelf towards the front.  Things used hardly at all end up eventually towards the back, where they should be.

Among my collection, a very significant selection of flavor enhancers, I have pure spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, but I also have blends such as zaatar and masala.  My shelf intermingles them.  And they are not alphabetized or sorted by sweet/savory collections.  So I found myself needing a peppercorn refill but no ready means of locating them amid the other bottles.  I didn't even remember what brand of peppercorns I bought or when I purchased them.  So began my spice repertoire treasure hunt.  I took a few bottles out at time, placing them in random order first on an empty portion of a wire overdoor shelf, then onto the kitchen table.  While I didn't capture anything I didn't already know I had, I identified duplicates and tastes that I should introduce more.  Some bottles were ancient, probably far enough past prime to not enhance any recipes in a meaningful way.  I found blends that I've underused, Italian, Jerk, Chili Lime.  The peppercorn bottle, plastic house brand, sat along the side of the collection.  The bottle was larger than most but without a distinctive top that would have identified it without having to read that bottle's label.

I took it from the pantry to my kitchen workspace.  Not wanting to do this again in the near future, I filled the milchig grinder about two thirds of the way up, replaced the top and returned it to its home in the milchig closet.  Then I took the fleishig mill, a wooden one that I've had for many decades with a means of setting the fineness of the grind, and filled that about halfway to the top.  Peppercorn bottle, still about half full, got returned to where I had found it, though considering how long I expect it to be before either mill requires refilling, its optimal home might be a different location.

For the spices now on my kitchen table, I did some sorting.  Rarely used go in the back, blends towards the front.  Bottles of waning supply to the front, though for each of those I have a fresher duplicate.  While my system is really a non-system of locating what I need when I need it, do I need to create a better one?  Probably not.  I do not prepare that many immense menus.  Seder comes from a different collection of seasonings.  Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Wife's Birthday, Thanksgiving.  I try to have dinner guests about five times a year, usually Shabbos or a Jewish festival.  For those, menus prepared two weeks in advance and recipes set on the dining table two days in advance, I can just go on my periodic spice search.  I probably should throw out those long past prime or unlikely to ever by used again.  That would create more room.  If a recipe ever mandates what had been discarded, it can be replaced and the date of purchase put on the bottle with a Sharpie.

My kitchen serves as my hobby.  Seasonings are essential tools, whether from recipes or for daily suppers, where I decide what to add to a bowl of spaghetti as it boils or to my salmon croquette mix as I put the substantive components in the mixing bowl.  Random is not ideal.  Placement of the spices in storage should make more sense.  Yet organizing them seems a low-yield effort.  Locating the peppercorns took 10-15 minutes and enabled a census of what I already had.  It will not need repeating for another year or two.  The elegant dinners always require hunting for what the recipes specify, though I make occasional modifications. I will return what I took from the closet to the kitchen table back to the closet in a more thoughtful way.  Reconstructing my system seems not worth the effort.

Making Lasagna

My kitchen.  A place I like to be. Few things bring me more personal satisfaction than making supper each night for my wife and me.  Or periodically an elegant dinner for the relatively limited number of friends that we have acquired.  It's food.  It's not all kitchen.  I have to think about what to make.  For guests or special occasions.  It starts at my desk where I search recipes in cyberspace and fill out a menu grid, then sample what might be possible in the living room where my Kosher cookbook collection fills more than one shelf.  It entails a survey of the weekly Shop-Rite ad which hints at what I can make economically.  There is usually a two-hour expedition to the store itself, aisle by aisle.  America has food abundance.  I have the good fortune of ample funds to purchase pretty much anything that I can imagine as useful for a satisfying meal.  Often too much, as the contents of my limited freezer need some juggling.

Most meals are simple.  Something from the freezer.  Pierogies, crunchy fish, faux meat packaged as a heat-up entree, fish fillets thawed a day in advance.  Meat for shabbos, more often than not poultry, thawed two days in advance.  And a vegetable.  Sometimes perishable like a sliced tomato or cucumber.  Often frozen like corn or green beans where I can extract as much as I need, then boil.  Sometimes the vegetable Shop-Rite puts on sale that week.  Simple, but with a modicum of which of the many options should I take.

Along the way, I have a few signatures, or at least go-tos.  For shabbos cholent.  For guests, a roasted turkey half-breast or chicken cacciatore, one needing little effort, the other requiring many steps.  Desserts, a nut cake or a honey cake, one basic recipe with variants.

For suppers at home, I have two that require preparation, Macaroni and Cheese in the style of Horn and Hardart, which was my Automat staple, and Lasagna taken from the first cookbook judged worthy of the Artscroll Jewish publishers.  Each needs some targeted purchases.  Lasagna offers me more room for experimentation.   Each lasts four meals, one out of the oven, one the following night's supper, and two rectangles cut cold, wrapped in foil, and frozen for a supper each of the next two weeks.

Lasagna has a spinach base, so I need to get frozen spinach when on sale and keep it in the freezer until the day before.  I usually get the cut variety, but have gotten the leaf form.  They thaw waterlogged, so I take a fistful at a time, give a good squeeze, placing a handful at a time into the mixing bowl until all has been drained.  For a while I tried using a colander.  My hands extract more water.  Then a tub of cottage cheese.  Most come as one pint but the Shop-Rite house brand comes as 24 ounces, which seems to leave me more filling to work with on assembly.  Cottage cheese comes in a number of different forms.  Large or small curd, reduced fat or full fat.  After baking, the curd size doesn't matter.  Small mixes more easily.  And always full fat.  The purpose of cheese of any type is its sensory pleasure, which comes from its lipid elements.  And brand on sale when I go shopping.  An egg is needed for binding.  Dump into the bowl after the spinach, blend with a fork.  Then seasonings.  The Artscroll recipe calls for oregano and black pepper.  I vary this.  Oregano seems to work best.  The half teaspoon given in the recipe comes out unnoticed.  I use more, but since I never measure it, I don't really know how much more.  Black pepper is not noticed at all when served.  I look at my spice collection and pick one.  The Middle Eastern spices don't do especially well, despite Lasagna being a Mediterranean preparation.  Season salts and Asian spices are better.  But the options and my selection make each preparation a little different.  

The real variation from batch to batch comes from the cheese that is added to the cottage cheese filling.  The Artscroll recipe calls for mozzarella.  It is easy to find kosher-certified mozzarella.  And it is a staple of Italian pasta recipes because of its melting qualities and texture.  As a semi-soft cheese in its kosher formats, I find it difficult to shred with a processor's shredding disc.  More liquified mozzarella, really more of a paste, mixes easily with the cottage cheese in the prep bowl.  I have found cheddar a better option.  Table-K cheddar is easy to find and reasonably economical.  It shreds easily, which makes it better for the upper topping.  I will most often use some form of sharp cheddar, either by itself or in combination with mozzarella.  For flavor, I have used acceptable additions of blue cheese and Monterrey jack, but cheddar and mozzarella seem to offer the preferred texture and taste.

The lasagna is layered and topped with jarred spaghetti sauce.  There are several brands that are kosher-certified and go on sale.  The jars have become subject to shrinkflation, now containing 24 ounces when they used to contain 26, which is what the recipe calls for.  I find the 24 oz usually adequate but sometimes pull a partially used jar from the fridge to supplement.  The vegetarian jarred spaghetti sauces have their own variants.  Marina, basil, garden tomato.  The varieties without texture perform better.

So with just a few variable ingredients, the sauce, cottage cheese style, topic cheese, and spices, I can get a lot of different minor combinations from the same recipe.  Not having any reason to standardize what I do, and indeed a lot of reasons not to, each batch comes out unique but never dramatically so.  While I vary these brands, I do not do formal experimentation with the combinations or write them down.  Instead, I will purchase the cheese in a half-pound brick without earmarking it for lasagna.  Spaghetti sauce is purchased without lasagna or variety in mind, so I choose what is in the pantry.  Oregano is a constant, a small handful crushed.  Other herbs and spices vary from none to a shake or a few grinds of black pepper, to something in my spice collection that catches my attention when I see what I have available.

However I make it, the end result is usually good.  Sometimes a little overbaked.  More often just right. The underlying purpose, basically the enjoyment of my kitchen and the challenge of preparation is always fulfilled.

Mopping the Floor

When I remodeled my kitchen, using an annual bonus to fund the project, I focused on utility along with visual appeal.  Wipable refaced cabinets, stainless steel sink, tile backsplashes.  And modern resin tile floors in a faux granite pattern.  Soil resistant.  Needs no protective sealants or resurfacing.  It does need periodic cleaning, something I perform much less frequently than I should.  It was long past due time for a thorough mopping.

Another advantage of the tiles is their 1 x 1 foot size. Mopping the kitchen floor requires exposing the floor's surface.  The convenient square pattern enables me to create zones.  I can move some furniture with my wife's assistance, creating zones of about ten square feet, then sweep and wash.  Let it dry, then expose another zone.  In one afternoon I mopped about half.  I can easily assess what still needs to be done and move enough stuff to do two or three more zones of the remaining surface.  Then with nothing in its usual place, I can decide if there might be better places to situate tables, carts, bins, or other parts of the floor designated to a set purpose.

I bought two new mops.  The Mr. Clean one, the more advanced of the two, I could not figure out how to use.  Some pine sol and hot water into a galvanized steel pail with rollers purchased not long after I moved into my house, then wet and wring the mop.  The water turned muddy.  The tile cleaned look cleaner, though not stunningly so.  I got a sense of where the grime accumulates.  Mostly where we feed our cat and along the stove, sink, and refrigerator, that triangle which makes a kitchen function.

Finish today.  I probably need a better schedule for doing this.  Rather than removing all things that cover the tiles, that can be done once or twice a year.  Maybe monthly, I can take a brush and pail with some pine sol or spic n span and hand scrub the more soiled area in the usage triangle.  Or maybe make my dormant Swiffer system functional or restore a sponge mop, both easier than the string mop.

That still leaves me with cabinets and light fixtures to clean.  Maybe windows.  Somewhere I will probably need professional cleaners, but not yet.

Surveying Stuff

Dealing with my cluttered basement has a place on this cycle's semi-annual projects.  On the first non-shabbos day to pursue them, I made mental excuses to avoid, or at least procrastinate this one.  Nature had another plan.  The Weather Service announced a local tornado warning, advising everyone to seek shelter in a basement if they could.  I looked outside.  Seemed legit.  And I had been in a real tornado with damage to a hotel across the courtyard during a visit to Mammoth Cave not that long ago.  So as much as I preferred doing other things, a half hour in my basement, temperature not that much above a wine cellar's, seems a wise thing to do.  

Since forced there, I might as well begin my project.  The space had a musty odor, more in the farthest corner than where I was, at the other end near the furnace and water heater.  Facing the furnace, I glanced at a not yet occupied mousetrap place by the exterminator at his last survey.  To my right, a work bench, all flat surfaces large occupied.  To my left, shelves.  Better place to start.  Interesting inventory.  On the floor immediately in front of the shelves I found my good cast iron hibachi, little if ever used.  I had considered replacing it, but the current Amazon offerings cost a significant multiple of what I paid.  It just needs a scrubbing and drying.  Then some grilling this summer.  The shelves had mostly items suitable for food.  Unopened were bamboo steamers, and ice cream countertop freezer, a silverplate chafing dish.  I had taken my mid-sized French press to the kitchen where I use it regularly to fill a large travel much with good coffee to take to OLLI.  I had long since forgotten that this came as a set.  The sugar holder and creamer matched to the press had remained in the box.  I have a better guest sugar/creamer set already in the kitchen, almost never used, so I don't anticipate having any need to take this set upstairs.  I have two beer growlers, one and two liters.  At one time Total Wine introduced craft beer from kegs.  If you bought enough beer, they would give the growler as a promotion.  Good deal as a combo.  Not a good deal as a refill, as the price of the beer, good as these selections were, soon approximated the cost of the wines that I usually purchase there.  Growlers returned to the basement.  

As a youngster, my father invested in an indoor Farberware grill with rotating spit.  Diets were different then.  Steak could come out of the freezer, get plopped on the grid for a half hour and there would be dinner.  For shabbos, a minute steak tied as a roast or a whole chicken could be skewered in the spit and made by rotisserie.  It took a long time but always turned out better than roasting in the oven, which is why this method of cooking remains popular for takeout.  Cleanup of this bulky appliance was never trivial.  I got one as a new homeowner, used it a few times, then retired it to a lower metal shelf in the basement, which it has occupied for some thirty years.  Perhaps when I make the veal roast or next whole chicken that has been taking up too much space in my freezer that could be used for other things.

Found a surplus of thermoses.  Don't know why I have so many.  And I have more in the storage nook that surrounds my kitchen, just below the ceiling.  Thermos bottles have largely been replaced with insulated mugs and tumblers.  These are designed to fit into the beverage holder next to the driver's seat, do not have to be uncapped like a thermos, and have no stopper as a loose part to get lost and make the item no longer serve its purpose.  They won't break like a glass thermos.  But I have a lot of thermoses.  As a practical matter, I always worked at a place that always had coffee for the taking, either in a hospital doctors' lounge or in my office.  Almost never brought soup or broth to work.  Almost never picnicked, though among the items near the shelves were a couple of insulated coolers, mostly yard sale acquisitions, and a woven wooden picnic basket akin to what Yogi Bear would seek out.  And appropriately stored, my two milchig iron casseroles purchased on sale with intent, though few occasions to make milchig in major quantity.  And my turkey roaster, used only on Thanksgiving, though less so as an empty nester when a quartered turkey breast is more suitable for a few dining companions.  And two good fleishig casseroles, retrieved once or twice a year for major dinners.  And a large coffee urn, last used at my father's shiva in 2009 but perhaps still ready for its Next Act.  I assume the cord is inside.

What to harvest.  Hibachi for sure.  Designate fleishig, scrub the cast iron.  And very portable for kosher grilling at a park or on my deck, with some protection for the wood.  Four cup coffee maker for sure.  I buy a lot of k-cups, mostly for convenience and variety.  They go on sale.  Bulk coffee of a fine brand such as Lavazza or Starbucks or custom ground from Sprouts also fills my cart when on sale.  One cup easy to make in a Melitta cone or in a French press, though the latter takes some effort to clean.  And I have a 2-4 cup French press, just right for filling an insulated mug, though also a chore to clean.  Neither the cone nor the French presses are really set it and forget it.  The cones need aliquots of water poured over the grounds which then have to be watched.  The French press coffees need to be timed.  But the auto drip works at its own rate.  Water in tank, coffee with filter in its designated position.  Carafe in its position.  Then push a button.  No need to keep track of water level or occupy myself until the timer runs down.  That goes upstairs.  Everything else stays downstairs, at least until I am ready to make ice cream, steam something in bamboo, or host a reception that needs these things.

And then look to the right to assess the workbench contents.

Yellow Cart

It sits behind the kitchen table.  A multitasker, a catch-all, an anchor occupying its space for decades.  Periodically it gets tidied, the next revision long overdue.  If I need first aid for kitchen mishaps, envelopes and name stickers to mail things, a few basic tools useful for kitchen repair that is where it can be found, if these can be found.  Kitchen ties, rubber bands, paper clips, pens, scotch tape, packing tape.  Pens, sticky notes, small pads to jot notes.  All there.  

There's a certain challenge to removing what should not be there to better enable access to what should.  More than two spools of tape, loose-leaf reinforcements when we don't have binders there, magazines that check in but don't check out.

I started sorting yesterday, making good progress.  Tackle the two monsters today, two organizers that don't organize.  Then decide on better homes for what should not be there.

Enjoying My Kitchen

 

Facebook's nearly daily anniversary reminders indicated that my kitchen remodeling project is but six years old.  The cabinet facing with new doors had just been installed and it appears that the overhead lighting upgrades had also been performed.  But the counters were still laminate along with matching backsplashes, now quartz and tile, respectively.  New sink. Flooring came last.

It was worth every dollar spent and every selection and installment imposition that came along.  It's been the space that gives me joy even amid the frustrations of trying to stay one step ahead of clutter.

Valentine's Day dinner ahead.  Use of oven dominates the menu, though not exclusively.  Tidy up as I go.

Cleaning Refrigerator

It pays to work systematically.  Starting from the bottom shelves, I located a fair number of non-edibile, non-restorable items that used to be food.  Some had mold.  Some had reusable jars, or at least recyclable jars, but I opted just to toss the containers with the food.  Now have lots of room on the bottom shelves.  And I can track what I have.  A few minor things that can be used up, but mostly long term items not central to any meal.  Middle shelves a little later.

Some Kitchen Adventures

Despite some accumulation of fishing tackle a couple years back, I haven't gone fishing lately.  My art supplies remain ample but no meaningful drawing, watercolor, or adult pencil coloring have been performed.  My two harmonicas remain unused despite being kept within arms reach. Garden post-season.  All desire for recreation that never materialized.   Even my self-expressive writing seems in a lull.

All partially replaced by my attraction to the kitchen as my recreational outlet.  It could be more orderly, maybe neater.  Yet its utensils, appliances, ingredients, and final results keep me energized.  Even the cleanup offers a welcome challenge and misadventures a learning opportunity.

My shopping amid higher prices seems to reflect this.  When I buy something I think about what I will do with this as it goes into the cart.  Chicken breasts for shabbos, frozen fish or garden burgers for supper, whipping cream with the ice cream.  Apple walnut pie soon, as apples, walnuts, sour cream, sugar all on the week's sale items at Shop-Rite this week.

And then the big two:  Thanksgiving and wife's birthday.  Menu planning, sorting procedures to sequence use of stove, oven and electric appliances needed for multiple courses.  All with an elegant end in mind.  But apple walnut pie first.

Making My Kitchen Sparkle

Progress comes in increments but I think I have at least a conceptional completion image.  The kitchen has become the place in my home where I perform.  Food dominates, paper impedes.  Short articles and decluttering chapters in larger books for optimal kitchen organization abound.  My needs are less lofty.  I want to be able to find what I need when I need it.  It would be nice if it functioned less like a bowling alley where one object causes another to fall.  Storage zones have gone reasonably well.  I have places for cookware, milchig and fleishig, utensils, dishes.  There's a pantry with crude categories of what goes where.  The refrigerator can use an afternoon's purging, but the freezer no longer has randomness of its contents.  I put items scattered on the floor into reasonable categories.  When I need another bottle of seltzer chilled, I know where to find it.  Morning coffee supplies cluster in one place on the counter.  Basically not bad.  My challenges, though, have always been the surfaces, the table, counters, and to a lesser extent the fleishig island.  Assignment of space by frequency of use needs some attention.  Coffee more than daily.  Dishwashing continual.  Cleansers infrequent.  They need to go someplace else.  French Presses less than weekly.  Toaster daily.  Radio constant.  Containers for flowers for shabbos table weekly, but only use one at a time.  Utensils and sharp knives daily.  Those stay on the counter.

And then the table.  Organized now as paper and not-paper, then subdivided to my stuff and wife's stuff.  I rearrange a lot, never complete.  Need to just get everything off of it, wash it thoroughly, then create rules for what can return to that flat surface.  Start with my stuff, since I control it.  And soon.  And maybe there will be a day, even a moment, when I can announce DONE.

Usable Kitchen

Sometimes you just have to pick a project and do it until it is done.  My pride and joy kitchen, upgraded several years ago at significant expense has been my go to recreation space, other than My Space.  When challenging myself for special dinners, it is the place of greatest satisfaction.  It also is the place to put things where they fit at the moment without regard to loss of the room's intended function, which is partly to eat and partly to bring me joy.  It's out of hand.  I just have to go one element at a time, area by area, until it returns to the best I can make it.  No timer to guide me.  Just have to set this as a day's priority.  Usually no time is better than right now, but I have some deadline driven activities competing with this, so it will have to either wait or get done in small segments instead of the big swoop, but it is still a priority.

Washed Kitchen Floor

My kitchen should sparkle.  I invested in it.  New cabinets, sink, lighting, flooring, backsplash.  Being a home's hub for food and mail invites insidious accumulation of stuff and of grime.  Nice vinyl tile floor, faux stone, hadn't been washed in ages.  It was time to do this.  

Found a ringer pail.  On last half bottle of Mr. Clean.  Bought a new mop.  Recruited wife as assistant.  Our tile measure one foot square, which makes it easy to designated zones of 6-8 squares to mop at a time, starting with the far wall, then working towards the front door and family rooms.  Move tables and carts and stuff from one designated zone, mop those squares, move it back, then clear another zone.  I think I did five sections.  About halfway through, I went to Shop-Rite to treat myself to a donut.  The floor now looks much better.  

As I relocated items to expose the floor, it became apparent that some things probably have better homes than my kitchen.  I've never used the sewing machine that I bought at a yard sale decades ago.  Electric wine chiller and opener never used.  Milchig salad spinner not used in a long time.  They occupy a nook away from walking paths so there's no urgency to relocate them.  Our microwave cart has a great lower closet.  It its filled with cookery advertised thirty or more years ago as dedicated to microwave use.  We never use them but could deploy that storage space with door for other things.  A long time ago I dedicated a big plastic tub for my shoes.  Almost never wear any of the ones there, but should.  And the cabinets could use some degreasing.

The lighting remains top notch.

Kitchen Tidy

We got a bit out of hand.  It's been my most enjoyable work space, supplied with what I need when I need it, or as close to it as happens at home.  It's something I spent serious money on to make it a place that sparkles.  Periodically, including now, it needs some attention.  A recent serious ceiling water leak needs repainting that I can probably do myself.  I wash the floor before Pesach each year but should do it now as well, if I can create visible tile surface.  The hood filter needs replacement and the tile beneath it washing.  And that's before I put anything away that should be put away.  Avoid the Pesach rush.  Do it as a principle project today or at least soon.

Washing the Kitchen Floor

When I remodeled the kitchen, I replaced the original sheet vinyl with a neutral gray faux stone vinyl tile.  Good option, expecially when it needs maintenance.  Having spilled a nearly full jar of avocado oil on it, sopped up crudely with paper towels, it needed a scrub with detergent.  The pattern on the sheet vinyl allowed for separation into zones for washing though not nearly as easily as the tiles.  Fill plastic tub with hot water, dump in some Mr. Clean, and a little effort with a sponge mop that has an available scrubber brush.  Move furniture or other stuff out of the zone I'm working on, sweep, and wash.  Did half.  I can tell which half.  The rest today, though more stuff to move back and forth.  Worth effort.

Washing Kitchen Floor

When I redesigned my kitchen a few years ago to be the destination space I had craved, I looked at the space largely by what I hoped to do there.  Visual attraction had its element and I did not want to pay a lot to remove walls or install gas lines, but accepting the existing structure, I had the cabinets refaced, new quartz countertops, tile backsplash, and a new floor.  I selected a composite, light gray faux stone, largely for ease of maintenance.  It needed sweeping regularly and washing periodically.  Neither became routine.  As things got grungy, I thought it time to give it a comprehensive scrub, maybe finding a few lost objects in the effort.

Square tile has another helpful advantage.  It makes it easy to create regions.  Move a quadrant of furniture or cart or other things occupying floor surface, sweep and wash.  The squares make it easy to define where to expose surface as I work and to keep from repeating what I have already done.  Success.  Maybe a quadrant or a little less at a time, but all is now scrubbed.  

My placement of things around the kitchen has been fundamentally right so things can be returned to their original locations.  I did not find many missing objects, a few things better discarded, but mostly a cleaner look along with the satisfaction of having done something worth doing.  

My Kitchen Table

My kitchen depends on flat surfaces.  Around the perimeter:  a microwave which the instructions say not to pile things upon but shelves beneath, a plastic file cabinet, a wire cabinet, a rolling wooden island, counters in an L-formation, our refrigerator's top, a wooden cabinet in a nook, and a yellow metal rolling cart.  Moving inward, we have a kitchen table, four dining chairs and one other chair.  And that's only the visible flat surfaces, not counting the floor.  Cabinet and pantry space further expand where we can put things.  And we have a lot of things to put.  These past few months I've exerted some effort to claiming the island and the counters with some success.  Inroads to controlling the table have proven more intractable.

On many occasions I have tried to recapture control of the kitchen table.  Contents of the flat surface can easily be separated:  my things, wife's things, paper, not paper.  Paper tends to be overwhelming and the project fails.  It fails repetitively.  For now, though, I have my paper in two semi-neat piles and my not paper isolated to two other segments so by setting this as a priority, with the added incentive of being able to use the table for its intended eating purpose, I may get done, but it really has to be a priority.  I tend to do my priorities.

Restoring Kitchen Function

 Prosperity has afforded me a big house, all paid off years ago.  I use surprisingly little of it.  My Space has become my refuge, half a room recaptured largely clutter free with spread out desk made from Conran file cabinets and tabletop, a stereo, and a modern 55" flat screen TV.  I sleep in my bedroom, sometimes goof off there.  My six month initiatives include making it a sanctuary but one third of the way into the half-year allotted for this I've done essentially bupkis.  We eat mostly at the dining room table.  I will assume the horizontal on my living room couch and maintain some plants there, but that takes up little of the space's potential.  And then there's the kitchen.

A few years ago I put serious money, a year's bonus, to its upgrades with the intent of having it a more pleasurable destination than it has become.  Lighting and cabinets have been super.  I like the sink.  Quartz counters far surpass the original formica.  And new vinyl tile flooring and ceramic tile splashbacks make an attractive appearance.  What I have not been able to do was manage the flat surfaces which are mostly obscured with stuff at the expense of utility.  Papers, mail obscure the kitchen table.  Some appliances take up counter space.  Food that has a better home occupies the island that I bought prior to remodeling.  And the floor has too much stuff to regularly sweep and to wash with appropriate frequency.  I keep meaning to restore full utility and the fun of meal preparation that goes with it. While I do need some spousal cooperation to do this, the real barrier has been my own willingness to see the decluttering project to its completion.  Earmark this to be done between Yom Tovim and Thanksgiving.

Enhancing Kitchen's Function

While I still had a substantial income, I diverted a significant annual bonus to revising my kitchen.  Most of the upgrades were cosmetic: painting, wallpaper, new floor, new sink and cabinet facing.  A few were functional, particularly lighting and quartz countertop.  Now it has to function, as it contains everything I need, unfortunately probably more than I need.  We have a way of allocating any flat surface from the refrigerator to each chair with whatever fits at the moment.  I finally declared no more and set kitchen function as a priority to be addressed in a purposeful way every day.  Our refrigerator got a forced purge, partly from Pesach and partly from a shattered glass bottom shelf, replaced at considerable expense, along with the broken frame that held it.  While there is still room for improvement, I can find pretty much what I want in the refrigerator.  I have kept the cabinets mostly purposeful, designating a place for everything.  Drawers not as good but not bad.  It's those flat surface that hold mail that never get open, journals that have never been formally subscribed, food from supermarket that never really has a clear decision of what I want to reasonably access and with what level of ease.  I set the priority this week, starting with the table.  Almost done.  Then the island.  Then the counters, then the chairs, then the floor, then the cart.  Never quite the pantry.

In the Kitchen

Kitchens are often a home's centerpiece.  Since we virtually never have guests, that may not be our centerpiece, which for me may be the carved out My Space.  Still I invested in remodeling the kitchen to make it functional and attractive.  Clutter appears too often but function remains for the most part.

Washing dishes, usually be hand, offers some relaxation.  The occasional elaborate dinner challenges my organizational skills.  Making something new offers creativity and improving on something I made previously that could have been better directs self-improvement. 

Shavuot with its dairy challenges arrives late next week but I need to practice sooner, like today.

Functional Kitchen

If I have a hobby, or at least something that challenges me and diverts my attention from bearing the weight of the world, it has been my kitchen adventures.  I have avoided trendy appliances, though there are still a few unopened boxes of panini presses and a deep fryer in my basement.  And I've never used my induction cooker.  But generally I buy good pans and strainers and a stir fry stovetop wok.

Keeping this functional has been a challenge with a major makeover about two years ago and the addition of a rolling island which I use for fleishig preparation.  Wall racks and S-hooks keep the pots and pans easily accessible.  On the down side, any flat surface gets covered with stuff that compromises my workspace.  With my wife's help, we made the kitchen table and most of the floor visible, sorting things into two categories:  paper and not-paper.  It came out roughly even between us on paper, I had the majority of not-paper.  Need to do better with the counters which have a lot of contingency containers from plastic egg containers that I'm sure could be used for something, to clear plastic peanut and peanut butter jars that store my pens and those little aluminum pull tabs that one of the synagogues collects to support a charity.  Toaster, k-cup maker and k-cup holding tower get used and have to stay.  Dish rack has a fairly permanent space with exchanges for milchig and fleishig.  My milchig utensils have to stay along with a corner shelf that could be put to better use.  My wife likes to listen to the classics on the small clock radio we keep there.  All else is negotiable, and probably clutter.  Make my quartz countertop mine again.