use real butter

This idea had been spinning about in my head gaining little traction for several months until one day, a commenter asked if I would post pictures of my kitchen. The hamsters ran faster in my brain… sure, a kitchen tour. Better yet, how about kitchen tours? Today is the first of six posts on food blogger kitchens. I thought it would be fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes look at a handful of them. After this week, I will feature two kitchens each Thursday into mid-April. Should be fun!

blog: use real butter
blogger: jen
location: small mountain town outside Boulder, Colorado @ 8500 feet asl
house: 11 years old, contemporary mountain-style home
kitchen footprint: 144 square feet (12×12)

When I say “my house” I really mean “my kitchen”. As in: Come on over to my house my kitchen. Because that is invariably where our guests end up: in the kitchen. At the parties we throw, people mill about and around the kitchen. It’s where it’s at. I have cooked in dormitory kitchenettes, in closet-sized (and hallway-shaped) apartment kitchens, on a Whisperlite stove in the backcountry, on the tailgates of many a truck in Chile and Argentina (in the dirt)… For anyone who loves to cook, you make due with whatever you have got, and I did for seventeen years. Even in this, our first home, the current kitchen needed some Jen-tweaks to make it more functional.

the ikea wall

The only major adjustment to the kitchen was turning an empty wall into the Ikea wall with Varde counter and cabinet units (nice and sturdy) and a floating Ikea shelf above. I keep certain appliances out and ready to use: the stand mixer, food processor, juicer, kitchen scale. You can never have too much counter space or storage space, and I use every bit of it.

a use for my pottery : my favorite light switch plate left by the previous owners

storage jars : deep drawers to hold pastry tools and sharp things

**Jump for more butter**

During this time of year, it is easy to get wrapped up in baking, gifts, shopping, travel, celebrations… Thank goodness for Pim. She is the fabulous host of Menu for Hope each year and reminds us all that there are people in need - in *real* need. This is the fifth year that Pim is running Menu for Hope and it is my second year participating in offering a prize.

So what is Menu for Hope? I think Pim says it best:
Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too - can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of their choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

**Jump for more butter**

I think NaBloWriMo is sucking the creative juices from my brain.

I usually plop down and crank out a post lickity split, but today… I’ve been writing and deleting and writing and deleting all afternoon. So I’m giving it one last go and that will be it.

During my recent funk I was having a heck of a time trying to muster up the excitement to cook or bake something and blog about it. You would think I could food blog in my sleep at this point. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I just knew I felt dissatisfied. Once out of that downward spiral, I tried to figure out what the problem was.

I think it was the culmination of various physical ailments coupled with expenditure of all remaining energy on visitors and travel for an extended period of time. Basically, I was getting zero creative input. I wasn’t able to keep up with my favorite food blogs, read my cooking magazines, flip through cookbooks, brainstorm ideas. Oddly, Art Culinaire arrived right at the time things began to settle down for me. Like a spark, it reignited my inspiration.

**Jump for more butter**