If you follow Deb Perelman on her enormously popular blog, Smitten Kitchen, you are already familiar with one part of her East Village, NYC home kitchen very well. There is a 36-inch span of black speckled countertop where she preps, plates and shoots just about anything that ends up on the pages of the site. It's the same little nook, perched high above a busy avenue, blessed with perfect afternoon light, that serves as the set for most of the more than 300 photos in her new book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.
So when Deb invited me over to cook with her, I jumped at the chance to see the teeny-tiny rental kitchen for myself.
After writing online for fun for several years, Deb had the idea in 2006 to start Smitten Kitchen. At the time she was an IT reporter (before that an art therapist, record store supervisor, barista, swimming instructor, you name it) a job she kept until 2008. She and her husband lived in an apartment across town in Chelsea with a similarly small kitchen and a positive attitude about it to match. There she began to cook and photograph original recipes and became known as an obsessive home cook.
In 2009, when she was pregnant with her son Jacob, she moved into this place. By then Smitten Kitchen was in full swing and I asked if when looking for her next home she sought one with a kitchen a little more fit for a person making a living from their adventures in cooking. She said the first thing she noticed was the eastern light coming through the large window at the end of the counter.
"It's certainly not my dream kitchen, but it is my dream job. In terms of what I do with my time every day, I haven't had to downgrade one bit." Her only complaint is that the 28-square foot kitchen is adjacent to her son's room. A thin glass door separates the two, with her three-quarters-sized refrigerator peeking just ever so little over the door jamb.
"I think it actually makes me a better cook," she says, working the chocolate chip brioche pretzel dough on the black countertop, "it forces you to reign in your far-fetched ideas." The genius of Deb's recipes are that they combine great ideas, while only using ingredients and equipment that the average cook has at their fingertips.
I described how I cope with my own tiny kitchen, how the center work island is essential. "You know, honestly, I really don't care that I don't have a center island. There's a window, a dishwasher, even a checkerboard tile floor. It's charming!"
Familiar with the particular challenges of developing recipes for a cookbook in a home kitchen, I asked how she made it through. She turned me around one hundred eighty degrees. The living room serves as overflow: cookware rests on a pair of dining room chairs, and an old china cabinet holds all her flatware, cups and bowls. The kitchen truly is just about cooking. Setting the table and actually eating the food is a different subject entirely. And as for chronicling every single thing she cooks, there's even a special perch for her camera, just outside the kitchen door.
Even her son, Jacob, has a kitchen in the living room. "This is how we do it," she says. "And it works. Right now I wouldn't live anywhere else."
→ Visit Deb's Blog: Smitten Kitchen
→ Check out Deb's Book: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook
We're always looking for real kitchens from real cooks.
Show us your kitchen here!
(Images: Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
A Real Dinner, Fast: 5 Favorite Types of Almost-No-Work Meals
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Straw Mat from The ...
Find Your Style: 20 Classic to Contemporary Kitchens to Add to Your Inspiration Board
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
A little side trip to (realistic) perspective camp! This is so close to my reality-I love it! A happy kitchen which is well and lovingly used.
Where's the 8ft long marble island? Oh, I see. Deb's a real cook like Mark Bittman, cranking out gorgeous meals in a normal kitchen. My hero!
Positive and inspiring in every way. Thank you for sharing Debs kitchen. her upbeat mood is wonderful. I have afternoon light streaming into my kitchen as well, and I love it to bits. I also have a set of Cinderella bowls {like Debs on the chair, the blue one} handed down from the husbands family. Love the connect, and love SKs cookbook! Got a happy feeling reading your post Sara!
Just love her cookbook and now after seeing her kitchen am reassured that I don't need to expand my kitchen to make great things happen. Her recipes are very inspiring, unique, classy and do-able. Thanks Deb!
This was SOOOO good for me to see. I'm a regular reader of SK and was just commenting to my husband the other day how I needed a bigger kitchen. I live in NYC so I share the frustration of dealing with small spaces especially when you enjoy entertaining. Thanks so much, Deb, for reminding me to get some perspective and learn how to make my kitchen "wall" work for me.
I am even more in awe of her now!
She is truly an inspiration! And her recipes are always lovely and delicious! Next up...Dobos Torte because she makes it seem so doable.....even fun for kids to help. And she's real......she is so incredibly down to earth! I tell my friends that I would cook even if all I had was a bunsen burner;-) I think Deb would agree.
This makes me love her so much more than I already did!
ive been dying for a bigger kitchen. super astonished she can pull it off in her small kitchen- maybe i can manage it too
love Deb and her site (especially love that she doesn't promote anything on it or do free giveaways.. it's just her, her family, and her food). Thanks so much for the tour - Love that she does it all with so little.
I will stop moaning about my kitchen right now; the planned renovation will go ahead in the future, and while it will include reorganization, installation of a gas range and updating of finishes, all talk of expansion must now die.
Love her wrought iron chanukiah (special menorah for Hanukkah) so much. Want!
Ah, so that's her secret-- she stores her dishes and glasses (and bottles of booze) outside of the kitchen in a standalone cabinet. In her recent interview on the Diane Rehm show she talked about freeing up counter space by putting away things you don't use every single day, and while I agreed with the sentiment I didn't know where those appliances like the blender and toaster oven are supposed to go otherwise.
This makes me feel better - I have even less counter space than that, but I manage to crank out plenty o'good stuff from my kitchen.
Got to love someone who is not whinging about how small their kitchen (or whatever) is and just gets on with living with what she has. Thanks for the post and for showing that we can live without Mc????? in our homes.
I love Deb and have been reading her blog since the beginning. I feel like I have a friend that just got famous;) I think her success hinges on her amazing ability to balance great recipes, photos and engaging writing (and of course that adorable boy;)
I have a small kitchen too, and I've never felt as if it seriously limited what I can make. It's great to see others not only managing with little kitchens too, but embracing them as well. :) Still, I am surprised by how small her kitchen is! I always imagined Deb's kitchen to be bigger; I guess this just goes to show how talented she truly is.
What I really like about her kitchen isn't just that she made something so small work for her, but that she works just like the rest of us. Books piled up to there, various gadgets tucked away wherever they will fit without falling over, and plates stacked in unusual spots. She affirms that good cooks don't come out of pristine kitchens.
Totally love this as I have a small double sided galley kitchen myself, with chopped up counter space. I have a space that I use for most of my cooking and prepping work, and it's roughly 27x24", right between my apartment sized stove and my fridge. The other 2 counter areas are on either side of my sink, which is right behind me when I'm at the stove.
The counter to my left is where I keep my knives (in a block) and cutting boards, and scale and is where I put stuff to dry in the drain basket, the counter to my right is for dirty dishes, or for staging stuff for later in a recipe so it's out of my way, and where the food processor is kept so it can be used at any given moment.
I keep my crock pot, blender and mixer on a high shelf in my pantry and have plenty of cupboards for storing stuff and use my wall to hang stuff that can be hung, such as pots and pans.
It all works as long as you properly organize your storage/counter space to suit your needs and keep food stuffs separate from dishes/cookware etc.
I get so tired when I watch say, House Hunters on HGTV and hear the wife complain about where is the island or this kitchen is outdated and/or too small. Enough of that.
When my late Mom was alive, she and I have been known to cook in her double galley kitchen that was only slightly larger than mine (both rental kitchens at that) and we just communicated to each other if we opened the oven door etc so the other would not run into it. Works just fine. Just takes forethought and a bit of planning to make it work.
Thanks for sharing your creative space!! My kitchen has afternoon west light streaming in right now! Gorgeous Rockies' sunlight!! My counter holds makings for next choices, while recipes hang in 'clips' on side and front of my refrigerator! We just might be related... lots of familiar sights...let me know when/if you want to ski and cook!! Ironic that I printed your whole wheat ricotta scone recipe just this morning!! only missing the heavy cream ...
Ah! Deb, I want to be you. You in training? Mini-Deb? Younger and sadly Jacob-less? I love how your place just feels like home. It's wonderful.
Very nice. I really like her comment that the limitations of the space force her to reign in her far-fetched ideas. That's a great insight. You don't need a big space to cook exquisitely well. And small kitchens keep you away from overloading on gadgetry and paraphenalia, and I find after years of cooking that I've gotten better and better with simpler tools that I have mastered. Less cleaning too.
yay I've been dying to see her kitchen ... as all we ever get to see is the countertop. What a lovely tour and interview. Her book is amazing!
Great post, but I must say, I've got shaky hands, having to lift up all those bowls or pans to get what I needed would cause a lot of broken bowls! I'd need some sort of shelving for that.
I do love the light in her kitchen, I've got a decently-sized kitchen with not nearly enough lighting, makes me crazy.
Besides, any pics of Jacob are always welcome, from day 1, that kid (from one not usually fond of most kiddos), has been adorable! He's going to be a charmer for sure with that grin!
My two favorite food websites in one! Deb, you are incredible. Your joy for cooking and living comes across easily. Add me to your list of admirers....yes, there's many of us. And thank you The Kitchn for taking us there and recognizing the amazing beauty in what she does.
Oh, it is so good to see a person seriously cook and revel in what can be done in a small kitchen. I, too, have a small kitchen with southern light and I think more counter space. It sometimes surprises me, with real pleasure, when I put together a nice meal in my small kitchen. I do the same thing that Deb does and other writers have also done. I have a separate hutch, wonderfully handmade by my husband, where I keep my dishes and a number of my serving pieces. My friends and family are accustomed to my cooking style and compliment me by asking for repeats of some of the recipes I make.
My big old pressure cooker is in my basement. My food processor is in my tiny pantry. I may even be inspired to get a stand mixer now! To all you love to cook, and cook in a small kitchen, bon appetit!
Susan R
She is so talented! Can't wait to get my hands on that delicious looking cookbook. I am truly amazed how she has managed to make such great use of a very small space. However, those cake pans, casserole dishes and mixing bowls up high on those shelves definitely wouldn't work for us in earthquake country!
I do love Smitten Kitchen - I'm so glad the book was finally released!
I started reading Debs blog before she got married. I was living in London (single) then. I followed her when I moved to Dallas (married) she had just had Jacob then, and now that I'm in Vancouver (a mom) I'm still following her. Just looking at her kitchen makes me love her a little more, and its always good to see Jacob in the posts. Keep up the good work Deb, congrats on the book and hope the book tour goes well!! From a well wisher in BC, Canada.
Deb is awesome - can't wait for the book!
I love her even more after seeing her space. It just goes to show that fancy ain't a necessary ingredient for making fantastic food. How down to earth and refreshing!
I love Deb! So excited for her book. Great post.
I can honestly say her recipes she posts have always been fantastic that I've tried (her lasagna is the bomb!) And it always was so refreshing to me to see her photos- that look GREAT- it her actual kitchen!!! No staged 3-point lighting, no props. Burnt old pans and flour covered counters.
I knew from her blog her kitchen was small but wowza. I remember having a kitchen that size and know the pain, it just makes it all the more impressive.
I have down sized to a teeny kitchen following a divorce. Wonderful to see what she is accomplishing in her small space & that she is so happy about it :) Now I am inspired!
I love SM! her recipes always turn out just like they should. And her writing and photography are both amazing. Been following her for a long time. Thanks for showing us around her adorable kitchen.
Another reason why Deb is amazing! Such a wonderful inspiration to all of us with tiny kitchens.
Wow- had no idea her kitchen was so small. As Tim Gunn would say, "Make it work!" She definitely makes it work- her photos suggest a beautiful studio space!
Deb is the best. If you're a good cook you can make something tasty over a hot plate. And I love that her kitchen isn't styled--her fridge is crammed with papers, just like most people's.
We have a deep cabinet that we stuffed all of the smaller appliances in. The rest ( crockpot, stand mixer, etc.) get stored in the linen closet.
Love this little kitchen! I am giving all the girls on my holiday shopping list this year The SK's cookbook and a Williams Sonoma cookbook stand. oops...i hope they are not reading this:)
deb, you and your little kitchen fall under the hero-genius-be my best friend please category of people i admire.
Hooray for the small kitchen!!! I've always had small kitchens and prefer them over larger ones. My mom remodeled her kitchen a few years ago. It's beautiful, but cooking is a nightmare - walking all over the place to get from fridge to stove to sink to ovens to appliances and messes on all the countertops. In my little kitchen, I take a step or two and almost everything's within arm's reach. It just takes planning to get a small kitchen set up to be super efficient, and a little storage space (hall closet) for seldom used appliances. I keep the coffee pot and juicer out. And the microwave (which my mom insisted on buying to rewarm her coffee when she last visited) is about to go in the closet because I hardly ever use it, and mom hasn't visited in a year.
Love this post!
@owens19 Can I get on that list? :) and @darlingclementine I couldn't have expressed it better; my sentiments exactly!
@owens19: Why just "the girls"? I know quite a few men who cook at home with successful results.
I am smitten with Deb's real life kitchen! I hope she makes a tidy sum with her cookbook after so generously sharing her recipes with us for so long :-)