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**

While I made dinner tonight, Jeremy set about doing a few home improvement projects. One of which was my idea to increase my kitchen rack space for pots, pans, and other dangling objects by adding side racks over the sink. Now I have fast access to all of my Caphalon and All-Clad pans!

it’s not how big your kitchen is, it’s how well you use it

No, not the house, but for all intents and purposes, the kitchen – she is done. I had been toying with asking my neighbor for some aspen log cuttings so I could build some bookcases to go under the kitchen bar. But the more I looked into the various materials, the more I desired some pre-fab, particle board, DIY kit, cheap thing… my answer came today in the form of a $25 bookcase that ACTUALLY FIT the dimensions I needed, while looking for faux wood touch-up marker at McGuckin’s for my crappy busted particle board bookcases that got dinged yet again… Me and particle board – we go way back. These two bookcases fit to within 1/2 inch of the space needed (b/c there are drawers and cabinet doors to the right).

**Jump for more butter**