use real butter

I’m thrilled to see many of you taking interest in the kitchen tour. Thank you for your kind comments and for being so enthusiastic and gracious to my guests. Opening your kitchen up to scrutiny can be a little nerve-wracking. It takes not only guts, but time and effort to present these kitchens – so an extra big thank you to all of the tour participants for doing such a terrific job. Today we continue our tour of food blogger kitchens with a visit to one of my old stomping grounds.

blog: Eggs on Sunday
blogger: Amy
location: Ithaca, NY
house: rented apartment, about 10 years old
kitchen footprint: 116 square feet
photos: all photos of the Eggs on Sunday kitchen are courtesy of Amy

Amy is the cook who makes me feel guilty – she is so good about using local, organic, seasonal foods. I always marveled at the tempting recipes she blogged using the produce that arrived in her weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box. I love those wholesome and healthy dishes almost as much as I love her sweet and cheery disposition. Amy is another food blogging friend of mine who has had cancer. I know you guys are starting to wonder if this is a cancer patient kitchen tour. It is not. It just so happens that some of my favorite food bloggers have been touched (or as I’ve said in the past, punched in the gut) by cancer. That’s not why they are my friends. I am drawn to their positive attitudes, great humor, and genuinely caring personalities. And they kick ass. Amy does her ass kicking in Ithaca, New York where I spent six years in graduate school. I know the very road she lives on!

eggs on sunday headquarters

**Jump for more butter**

[I had promised a recipe the other day and then failed to deliver. My apologies. We had a bit of a meltdown over here, as in, our DSL modem was fried. So instead of giving you a recipe, I fixed all of our technical issues and then gave myself the morning off to go skiing, which put me in a much better frame of mind to write this post.]

Here is where the fun begins for me! I had tremendous difficulty narrowing down the kitchens I wanted to explore. As you cooks and bakers know, the kitchen reveals a lot about someone – especially a food blogger. It is a personal and private space as well as one you share with friends when they come to visit, dine, or party. Because of that, I had a long list of bloggers lined up to ask to partake in this kitchen tour in case any of the original ten declined. But not a one said no! All of these great people are not only welcoming my nosy little self into their kitchens, but you as well! Such a gracious and friendly group.

Based on what I knew about these bloggers, I tried to get a decent distribution of types of kitchens. The point of the kitchen tours is to highlight the wide range of kitchens, tools, and setups behind an equally wide range of blogs. The coolest part for me is discovering commonalities as well as some really clever and unique ideas. So let’s get started, shall we? Please give my friends a warm use real butter welcome as only my kickass readers know how!

Our first stop is Australia where we are visiting with my dear Barbara of Winos and Foodies. I had no idea what to expect other than “classy” and I was not disappointed. Barbara *is* classy and eloquent and she has a wicked sense of humor. I’m learning all sorts of Aussie slang from my emails with her. She makes me laugh and sometimes she makes me cry. The woman is incredibly well-grounded and full of good, practical sense.

blog: Winos and Foodies
blogger: Barbara
location: Main Beach on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
house: apartment rented, building about 20 years old
kitchen footprint: no idea
photos: all photos of the Winos and Foodies kitchen are courtesy of Barbara

Barbara recently moved into this apartment and because she is undergoing more chemotherapy, she warned that she hadn’t been able to do much with it in the way of organization. Stepping into the kitchen space, it looks quite organized to me. I love the bright and airy feel of it. My eye tends to go straight to the little things, like these awesome bags made of parachute silk hanging from a wine cork board that her son made.

entering the kitchen : shopping bags on the nearby wall

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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**