After years of moving around both coasts, Lilian and her four young children settled down close to her husband's family in the rolling country hills of Ohio. Lilian and her husband finally had the opportunity to build the home they had dreamed of for years, and when they did, they put the kitchen literally in the heart of the home. This is Lilian's "forever kitchen", as she puts it. It was built to age. It has the space to feed four young kids, now and as they grow. It was designed to hold the crowds of family that flow in and out every weekend, and it is chock-full of smart, purposeful choices. This is a dream kitchen, both stunning and practical, sunlit and of service.

Come see Lilian's sunlit family kitchen, and take a peek at the terrific lunch she fed me — arugula salad with quinoa and a perfect vinaigrette, roasted cauliflower with green olives, and blueberry cream scones.

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When Amy Pennington, author of Urban Pantry and Apartment Gardening, invited me to visit her Seattle kitchen, one word kept coming up over and over. "It's dismal, Faith," she said. "My kitchen is in utter disarray." There was a ceiling leak, she explained, and her kitchen is located in a tiny rental apartment — no painting or renovation allowed. Sound familiar? This is very close to reality for many of us, I think!

And yet Amy's kitchen turned out to be a place of warm inspiration that depends in no way on granite countertops or IKEA cabinets — instead, it is full to the brim with preserves of summer fruit, dried herbs of every shape and size, and other smartly stashed-away food. She does all of this in the teeniest and most basic apartment kitchen you can imagine. Come see, and be inspired by her top tips for how and why to preserve fruit — even if you live in a tiny space. More

Amanda's eye for preserving period elements from her charming 1930s bungalow and updating with a graphic sensibility has resulted in one classy renovation. The space is full of light, handmade details and the smell of chocolate chip cookies Amanda had just pulled out of the oven as I arrived. The cookies (her Grandma's recipe, documented in the gallery) and the kitchen were both inspired.

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The first thing that happens if you walk into Judith Jones's kitchen, umbrella-less and rain-soaked as I was one recent afternoon, is you get a thorough knees-down licking from her Havanese puppy, Mabon. Then Judith offers you a warm kitchen towel from the rung of her Garland stove to dry off. It's an unusual welcome.

For my part, the entrance was anything but graceful. I self-consciously hunched over my rain boots, slipping them off, not taking my gaze off all the details of the room, and toppled over. How could I not? My eyes, like saucers, were busy scanning the French copper pots, peg-boards straight from Julia Child, the apothecary of beans, grains and spices, the industrial stove visibly etched with history.

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In September of last year, Rhiannon and her family moved from Oakland, California to a 1938 Portland home set into the green streets of the Laurelhurst neighborhood. The first order of business? Restore the kitchen, bringing back some of the space's inherent charm and color, but adding a few modern appliances to make cooking for a family easy. Join Rhiannon for a cup of tea in this adorable kitchen, rich with a lifetime's collection of jadeite.

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Jane is a designer and as such, has pretty definitive positions on all things aesthetic. Her kitchen is no exception. Here vision here was for warm wood, neutral colors, and striking accents amidst a functional space.

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After living in upstate New York, New Jersey and Manhattan, Visnja and John found a Victorian home in SE Portland to renovate, with an eye on a fabulous, open kitchen. They did just that, and wound up creating a relaxed, modern space with great energy, perfect for all the home cooking Visnja dishes up!

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As a food writer currently making do with a less than optimal rental kitchen, I find it especially satisfying when I get to visit others in my profession who, after years of cooking and recipe testing, have pulled their preferences and experience together to create, at last, their dream kitchen. This is how it was when I visited Carla Snyder, a cookbook author and food writer who lives near Cleveland, Ohio.

Come peek into Carla's warm, inviting kitchen — a space that is set up just to her taste and to her needs as a woman who cooks many, many dishes every single day. There are so many things to love about this kitchen!

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This past summer, chef Brandon Boudet and his girlfriend Isabelle Dahlin had us over for dinner during a photo shoot for their Apartment Therapy House Tour. Inside this one bedroom English-style cottage is a small galley kitchen that inspired some of the best food I've eaten all year. More

Laura fully renovated her studio apartment and its bathroom a couple of years ago, but she wanted to think about the kitchen for a while — not to mention save up for something good! And she has it now: A cool green kitchen for her small city studio, with just enough space and efficiency to cook well.

A long-time food blogger and serious mixologist, Laura loves to experiment in her kitchen. When it came time to renovate, she chose a number of traditional elements that were reliable and would serve a working kitchen long into the future.

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