Kitchen & Home

Whether you have a lot of workspace in your kitchen, or just a little, keeping your countertop neat and organized is paramount. It’s just too easy to leave a jar of peanut butter or a bottle of honey out, push it back into the corner, stack up a few cans for a meal you’re going to make tomorrow — and before you know it counter creep leaves you with nowhere to work.

Culinary School: Week 10 (of 12 weeks) Last Week’s Diary: An Easier Way to Fill a Pastry Bag This week in culinary school we focused on mousse and soufflés. Both of these desserts originate in recipes that sound easy, but they are both very delicate. Turn your head for a moment and your pastry cream is scrambled or you’ve over-whipped your heavy cream. Attention to detail is paramount in classic pastry recipes, and small tricks make for a prettier, tastier dessert.

I did not get my love of food from my mom. In a culinary world where moms are cited as the inspiration for almost everything, this statement probably sounds strange, and dare I say it, ungrateful? Perhaps it does. What my mom has offered me, however, has defined my journey in a way that transcends food and cultural boundaries. My mom has been — and still is — a very skilled and technical cook. She just never had the time to enjoy it the way I do.

When your apartment is only 473 square feet, you’re guaranteed to have a tiny kitchen. And that means that you’re going to have to be smart about storage. That’s exactly what Lauren and Mikko realized when they bought their apartment in Finland. And they came up with some great solutions that balance their two aesthetics perfectly.

If you’ve been looking at ways to update your kitchen (or just dreaming about renovating that rental kitchen) one trend you’ve probably seen a lot of is the farmhouse sink. Whether it’s because they are big, easy to clean, or just an alternative to top-mounted sinks, we’re betting this trend is here to stay. Ready to update? Here are some styles to consider. Also called “apron front sinks,” you’ll most traditionally find this style in white porcelain.

From Apartment Therapy → 4 Random (But Helpful) Uses for Castor Oil at Home Lucky for us, castor oil has fallen out of fashion as a medical remedy, but it can be useful in other ways at home instead!

From Apartment Therapy → Pull It Off: 9 Stylish Kitchens With Rugs A rug can go a long way to add personality to your kitchen. It can disguise flooring or add a fun splash of pattern or color. Here are 9 ways to pull it off!

Who cooks and eats here: Patrick Melroy and Courtney Miller Where: Santa Barbara, CA Rent or Own? Rent Artist Patrick Melroy and landscape architect Courtney Jane Miller cook and eat in a 70-square-foot space on the second story of a 1940s home in Santa Barbara. Their kitchen is drenched in natural light and feels downright heady with the scent of orange blossoms and ocean breeze wafting through the giant windows. It’s one of the most welcoming, comfortable and beautiful kitchens I know.

Tomatoes grow all over the world, and they play important roles in the cuisines of many cultures (Italia, anyone?). But down in Dixie, we do summer’s favorite fruit right (yep, tomatoes are a fruit). In fact, I’m gonna argue that we do them better than most. Proving this point was a mere few swift keystrokes for my food-writer friend and big time food-appreciator, Jennifer Kornegay. This Alabama gal means it, folks.

I’ve been growing tomatoes this summer, and it’s been a fruitful and delicious endeavor but not without a little garden drama. Just a few days into harvesting the ripening tomatoes, we ran into trouble. I went to the garden one morning to find tomatoes strewn around the yard. Seemingly untouched, the still-green fruits (and a few ripe ones) sat in the grass with no sign of tooth marks. What (or who) had done this!?

Q: I recently had some trouble with pantry moths getting into my OXO Good Grips POP containers. If these aren’t in fact as airtight as advertised (which mine clearly are not), what else is there that’s comparable (and is in fact airtight)? When I bought the POP containers I thought they were the best option out there. Help!

We can just imagine spending weekend mornings enjoying a leisurely breakfast in Wendy and Gavin’s window seat breakfast nook. We’re guessing those expansive mornings don’t happen that often — not with two boys and two dogs anyway. But for the times when they do, this expansive seating area is ready and waiting. Technically just off the kitchen, the breakfast nook serves as the main dining table for the family.

What is your medium in the kitchen, the ingredient — or set of ingredients — that makes you feel most alive and nourished and creative? When my life in the kitchen began, my mediums were flour, butter, and sugar. As the type of person who thrived on precision, I easily fell into baking and learned how to make flaky dough, elaborate cakes, and anything featuring gluten (oh, beloved gluten).

Q: I live in the most temporary of all temporary situations — student housing. Six strangers in a 3-bedroom apartment. Those of us who will be in the space for at least a year or longer are trying to find renter-friendly ways to spruce the place up. We’re painting, wallpapering, even putting temporary backsplashes and stone tiles in all the perfect places. The bane of my existence, however, is the hideous countertop that stretches the length of our small kitchen.

I have a friend who is not that into food. She mostly sees it as fuel, with an occasional concern for some minor preferences (no ketchup, eggs boiled hard, dark German beer). For her, the act of eating falls into the category of basic maintenance, like brushing her teeth or taking a shower. It’s a not very exciting but necessary activity, the kind of thing that can be occasionally skipped if no one is watching. Don’t worry, she has plenty of other passions.

Over the last month we published 40 kitchen before & after projects as part of our first ever kitchen makeover contest — and what a month it’s been! The Big Reveal was a chance for you, our readers, to share your kitchen transformations with the rest of the The Kitchn community, and we’re so glad you did. You all inspired us! On Wednesday reader votes sent four finalists (all terrific!) into our final voting round, which closed at noon yesterday.

The ballots are in! You voted for your favorite kitchen makeovers, and now we’re excited to share the four finalists of The Big Reveal contest, as well as the International favorite!

Prepare yourselves for a major pretty alert: hardwood floors in the kitchen! If you were ever on the fence about this look, we think these 10 kitchens will set you firmly on the pro-wood side. There’s no denying the beauty and warmth of wood floors, but how do they hold up in the kitchen?

Look at that picture above. Now imagine yourself sitting right next to that fire pit, messily eating a hot dog, slathered in ketchup and mustard. Perhaps you’re sipping a tumbler of hot, creamy chocolate or a long, cold, iced drink, lazily toasting marshmallows and listening to birdsong. You might be occasionally interrupted by the sound of wind, the river rushing by, and the odd sound of a child laughing.

Who cooks and eats here: Zack Paul Where: Santa Barbara, CA Zack’s Argentine grill fest was revelatory. His grill was specially made just for him, and he prepares his food with care, patience and expertise. So it was only natural he’d create the perfect side dish to complement the elemental flavors of char and fire: salsa!

Who cooks and eats here: Zack Paul Where: Santa Barbara, CA Yesterday we learned all about Zack’s Argentine grill technique, so today we’re going to dive into how to best cook the veggies and meats once they hit that grate! I noticed something right away about Zack’s grilling style: there were no extras! No rubs, no sauces, just the “salmuera” (salt water) basted all over everything. This salt water is a genius concept.

Who cooks and eats here: Zack Paul Where: Santa Barbara, CA Rent or Own? Rent Today we’re focusing less on a specific home kitchen and more on the outdoors; after all, what better way to celebrate summer than to take to the grill?

From Apartment Therapy → Take a Visual Tour of IKEA Through the Decades In June, I traveled to Sweden with IKEA for their Democratic Design Days.

Who cooks and eats here: Lyn Huckabee, co-founder of the Boston Food Swap and rental issues blog Rentwhich.com Where: Cambridge, MA When I visited Lyn Huckabee a few months ago in her cheery, apple-green basement kitchen, she didn’t know what to do with the mound of cob popcorn she’d recently gotten from her grain share. Cob popcorn? Grain share? That sounded intriguing! But that’s just par for the course for this avid-cook-turned-food-swap-co-founder.

When my husband and I were researching our kitchen renovation a couple years ago, marble countertops were the clear frontrunner, but we were nervous about the inevitable etching. So we paid visits to every marble-topped bar and marble-furnished ice cream parlor we could find, cocking our heads to the side, peering down long polished surfaces to examine the damage left by countless drippy glasses and plates of spaghetti. We ended up with marble and we’re very happy with it.

Jesa Henneberry, who has a super-organized kitchen we toured and admired, is all about eating well — not just gustatorily, but also for fitness and health. Since she spends a lot of time planning out and preparing menus for her clients who have the same goals, it seemed like a good idea to ask Jesa for some tricks of the trade. What are the best ways to plan meal aheads and keep a tight rein on portions? Have a plan and a format to follow and cook foods in bulk to be portioned out later.

Whitney’s downtown Austin apartment may be a small rental, but that hasn’t stopped her from tweaking the apartment to make it more comfortable and beautiful. What she’s done in her kitchen is the perfect example: Whitney believes in “filling a home with what you love even if it’s a rental and you don’t know how long you’ll get to be here,” as Apartment Therapy wrote. You can see this philosophy at work in her kitchen.

Who cooks and eats here: Jesa Henneberry, a personal chef and competitive athlete, and her husband Where: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York Rent or Own? Own Jesa, a trained chef, spends her days working in other people’s kitchens. She prepares their meals, organizes their weekly meal plans, helps them with portions, and makes sure they eat well.

I can hear my husband laughing from all the way across town as I write this post. As a cook, I am anything but neat; he calls me the “full-contact chef.” A typical afternoon of cooking will involve grease splatters, crumbs on the floor, and a pile of dishes. Imagine me as the Tasmanian Devil, but with a cloud of flour instead of a tornado. But I’m trying to mend my ways and make things a little easier for myself (and my husband, the dishwasher).

No matter how well-planned or orchestrated a party is, there is probably something you feel you could have done better. That was certainly the case at the wedding that I catered last month for my friends (see all the posts about it here). So, in the interest of sharing, learning, and minor embarrassment on my part, let’s take a look at the three things I probably should have done differently.

Kerra’s tiny Washington, D.C. kitchen was “the worst room in the apartment” before she made a few simple DIY changes — and now it’s the room she’s most proud of! Here’s what she did: Kerra took the doors off the cabinets, painted the walls and cabinet interiors in Rustoleum black chalkboard paint, and covered the refrigerator with contact paper.

I’m convinced that Cat Ba Island, off the northeastern coast of Vietnam, is the most beautiful place in the world. It has stunning views of Vietnam’s famous Ha Long Bay and its limestone karsts, richly diverse natural ecosystems, and friendly, welcoming people. It was a much-needed break from the traffic and pollution of Hanoi — even more so after the four buses and a boat it took to get to the island.

My husband and I have a mini coffee station set up in our pantry. We keep our burr grinder, coffee beans, hot water kettle, and scale grouped together for our pourover coffee, but beyond that it’s nothing fancy — nothing, in other words, like Victoria’s impressive (and beautiful) coffee cart station! Everything changed for Victoria of sfgirlbybay when she bought this kitchen cart from West Elm.

We don’t talk about larders very much nowadays. The traditional larder — a small, cool storage room used to keep foods fresh — has long been replaced by modern refrigeration. But larder love is still out there, only this time it’s more commonly seen in the form of a larder cupboard: A larder cupboard is a standalone unit that’s a cross between a kitchen cupboard and storage room. You might call it a “wardrobe for food,” as Homes and Antiques puts it.

Who cooks and eats here: Faith Blakeney and daughter Noa Where: Los Angeles, California Rent or Own? Rent Faith Blakeney is quite the style maven. She puts together eclectic homes with a sense of whimsy, color, and humor — qualities definitely on display in her own small kitchen, which is as joyful and exuberant as she is. The bright white walls provide the perfect backdrop to her daughter’s artwork, as well as Faith’s favorite found objects and collectibles.

I taught a spice tasting and blending workshop this week and participants asked so many interesting questions that got me thinking about my love of spices. Here’s a glimpse inside one of the (three!) spice drawers in my kitchen, and some thoughts how and why I use spices.

Q: I have several glass water pitchers I use to serve tap water. We have hard water that leaves mineral deposits on the pitchers I cannot remove. Any ideas on how to clean them? Sent by Mandy Editor: Readers, how do you get the mineral deposits off your glass pitchers?

Nobody does color and pattern quite like Finnish company Marimekko. We’ve long been fans of their kitchen textiles, and we still love this super colorful pot holder. As if that weren’t enough, now we’re smitten with their vibrant paper napkin collection! How pretty would these be at your next summer bash? Marimekko’s paper napkins come in sets of 20, and range between $4 and $7, depending on where you purchase them. (Crate & Barrel and FinnStyle carry most styles.

Who cooks and eats here: Hannah Vainstein and Nathan Hayden Where: Santa Barbara, California Rent or Own? Rent Hannah and Nathan are two of the most creative, fun, and unique super duos I know, and their kitchen is as stylish, natural and upbeat as they are. Nestled behind the Santa Barbara mission, this kitchen gets a ton of bright, natural light and is the location of many a dance and tea party. Join me as we tour this wonderful space!

“Our dream kitchen is in the planning stages,” says Matilde in this recent Apartment Therapy House Tour. So how do she and her partner cope with their New Orleans rental kitchen in the meantime? By hanging large pieces of artwork! While Matilde and Gustavo work on designing their dream kitchen, they’re making do with the kitchen that came with their 710-square-foot apartment.

Well, hello there! It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve updated you on my garden. One big recent change is the addition of trellises and stakes, which I’m sharing with you today. We recently trimmed trees in the yard, which left us with lots of firewood, but also spindly, twiggy pieces. We took the longest of those and constructed pea trellises for the two squares of thriving snow pea plants (see pic up top).

If you’re serving tea to a lot of people at a party or brunch, the last thing you want to deal with are measuring tools, infusers, strainers, or even a bunch of tea bags. Fortunately, it’s really easy to make tea for a crowd using a tea concentrate. You can even prepare it a day or two ahead. A tea concentrate is simply a double-strength brew that you dilute with boiling water before serving.

Julia Badovinac’s open-plan loft kitchen required a bit of extra planning for storage, since the high-ceilinged space was once an industrial building with no built-in shelving or closets. Fortunately the owners installed a kitchen that ran from one end of the space to the other, and Julia and her boyfriend Julian added on from there.

About four years ago I packed up all my things, sold most of my furniture, loaded up a U-haul, shoved my cat into a travel bag, and headed north. After spending years in Los Angeles it was time to go home. Literally. My husband and I were headed to the exact spot where I did most of my growing up. My parents had since moved out, and they graciously allowed us to rent my childhood home from them.

I have never been very fond of my refrigerator, a white monstrosity that is really too big for my small rental kitchen and sits at an angle due to a slope in the floor. But something happened this week that changed everything. The Monstrosity, pre-makeover I came home the other day to discover that my partner Gregory had hung a large photo of oyster mushrooms on the side of the refrigerator.

Laura’s gorgeous Glasgow apartment has many stunning details — high ceilings, original, restored features — but it’s the kitchen and accompanying dining room that are truly eye-catching. If the kitchen island above looks vaguely nautical, that’s because it’s made from reclaimed ship parts! As Laura tells Apartment Therapy in this recent House Tour, she loves a mishmash of old and new things.

So you made a mistake? Fear not! It's possible to get rusted cast iron cookware back to cook-ready condition!

When we renovated our kitchen a little over a year ago, we chose to put in honed marble countertops. One the one hand, I just couldn’t imagine anything else in the kitchen. On the other hand, we were nervous; was it the right decision? Would they be a practical choice for a high-traffic kitchen? What about staining and etching? Read on to find out what I think about my marble countertops, a year after moving in. The short answer? I love the countertops.

One of these methods should do the trick for sure.

Even cast iron pans that have been seasoned and cleaned carefully will develop a little rust once in a while. My favorite way to tackle rust on cast iron skillets, knives, and other cooking tools? With a raw potato. To clean rust with a potato, cut it in half lengthwise or crosswise, depending on how large a surface area you want. Dip the cut end in dish soap or baking soda and firmly rub it over the rusted area. If the end of the potato gets slick, slice it off and dip the newly cut end.

“I made a rookie mistake last year —- I started from seed,” a friend quipped as I asked about her square-foot gardening experience. Oops! That’s what I opted to do this year, also my first at-home gardening project.

My big project this month was to find a way to hang my pots and pans on a wall in my kitchen. After considering various locations, my husband and I ultimately decided to hang two rails around our kitchen door frame: a smaller rail to the right, and a longer one above. This weekend we finally tackled the installation. Did it work? Were we able to install pot rails without pulling out the wall? See for yourself: Yes, indeed!

Who cooks and eats here: Steven Soria of Make Smith Where: Santa Barbara, CA Rent or Own? Rent When I realized my favorite local leather designer Steven Soria was also an amazing cook and lived a block away from me, I had to see where this magic alchemy took place.

Are you planning on setting up a backyard compost system this year? If you are looking for a little guidance on turning kitchen scraps into “black gold,” Ryland Engelhart is here to help. He’s the co-founder of Kiss the Ground, an organization dedicated to healthier soil through composting, and he today he is sharing six essential tips for better composting at home. Keep your compost moist. Yes, you need to water your compost; it should be as moist as a wrung out sponge.

This week is not very picture-heavy, as all of the action is taking place below the soil. So, I thought I’d take the chance to share a cute pic of my gardening assistant helping me out, following up the seed planting with a little water. (For the record, he was watering the already-sprouting pea plants here. I was weary of him washing away the new seeds with that watering can!) Plant seeds in the ground on April 10. Plant plants in the ground on May 10.

Q: I’ve worked and worked with oven cleaner, metal brushes, steel wool, straight razor scrapers, and the like. i have 5 cast iron skillets and a Dutch oven with zero “removable” cooking debris, and I still get a dirty towel when I wipe them down to start the seasoning process. The patina is a dull dark grey for the most part…lovely to look at, but still dirty. What’s going on?

One of my favorite moments, while driving through the city, is to glance up at an apartment building and spy a balcony spilling over with greenery. I have lived in my fair share of small spaces over the years and remember how gratifying it was to have edible plants in a seemingly impossible growing environment.

Maybe you are already familiar with the concept of companion planting. It is a phrase that is tossed around frequently in many gardening circles. At its core, it is the grouping together of plants that will be beneficial, in some way, with one another. The benefits of companion planting may include healthier plants, less use of pesticides, improved yields, better flavor, less frequent watering and more efficient use of your personal garden space.

Have you felt as though all of your garden efforts culminate in only a few weeks of late season productivity? Here are some ideas to elongate your harvest season, start to finish. Regardless of where you live, the opportunity for a continual harvest throughout the summer months is within your reach. With a little planning, organization, effort, and patience, you can maximize your garden’s space and output. 1. Know your zone and plant seasonally.

Hope and Pete’s recent House Tour on Apartment Therapy is bright, colorful, and full of personality befitting the couple’s “laid-back bohemian aesthetic.” What really caught my attention, though, was their kitchen storage setup. IKEA’s Expedit bookshelf has been around for what seems like ages, but I can’t say I’ve seen it used very much in the kitchen. How is that possible?

Wine isn’t cheap. In fact, of all the beverages you could choose, it’s often the most expensive. So why not spend five minutes to learn a bit about that liquid in your glass? Here are five 1-minute projects that will teach you quite a lot about how wine tastes and responds to food. Do them one at a time, or all at once, with friends!

Last week I showed you my plans for a raised-bed garden. This week, let’s talk about how we built the beds. When we demolished a rotting deck off of the rear of our home two years ago, there were two cedar beams used as railings. Even then, we knew we wanted to use the 4x8x12-foot-long beams to build a raised bed planter, so we stored them away and saved them for a season when we had time to finally get around to planting a garden: This is the year!

I grew up in a family with a huge garden, which might have something to do with why I haven’t gardened on my own until now. I’m so excited to get back to it, though, with this small kitchen garden of only 4×7-ish feet. The garden will be steps from the back kitchen door and near a small herb bed I started last year with chives, tarragon, sage, thyme and mint. Here’s the plan.

Rachel and Brian have three drawers in their West Town, Chicago kitchen, but to avoid a mixed-up, messy utensil drawer, they did something unusual with all their kitchen tools: they hung them on the side of their lower kitchen cabinet! You can see from this wide shot that the couple doesn’t have a lot of backsplash or wall space for hanging utensils, which is why they decided to use the side of the cabinet! Clever and space-saving.

If you’re renovating a kitchen, there are dozens of things to consider: what kind of countertop do you want? Where does the range go? But sometimes in the midst of materials madness, it’s easy to overlook the simple, smart design decisions — the ones that, ultimately, have way more effect on your day-to-day kitchen life than what kind of hardware you choose.

Where: SAT Foodlab, Montreal, Quebec Who cooks here: Michelle Marek and co-chef Seth Gabrielse Yesterday I gave you a peek inside Montreal chef Michelle Marek’s home kitchen, and today we’re going to visit her restaurant. No, we don’t usually write about restaurants at The Kitchn, but we certainly take inspiration for home cooking from them, and I felt that it would be interesting to talk to Michelle about how home and restaurant cooking differ from one another.

When I sat down to write this Kitchen Diary, I started feeling guilty. I can’t remember cooking anything in the past week! Do you ever have those weeks, when you’re just too lazy or tired or sick to cook? Here’s what I ate: sugar-laden instant oatmeal from my stash of road trip snacks. Two large bags of gluten-free pretzels.

Brass in the kitchen is one thing when you’re talking faucets, knobs, or lighting, but check out these three kitchens with all metallic cabinets! The image that started our search for metallic cabinets is from a kitchen designed by Kelly Wearstler. Isn’t it beautiful — and kind of wild? The cabinets above, which we first wrote about here, appear to be made out of hammered metal, which creates a lovely shimmer and reflectivity in this narrow space.

For Spring Projects month this April, I’m tackling a project that’s been on my to-do list since last fall. My pots and pans take up too much valuable drawer space in my kitchen, so it’s time to get serious about hanging them on the wall! Last fall during The Kitchn Cure I bought a ceiling pot rack with plans to install it over our kitchen island. This idea was soon abandoned over concerns that our rental kitchen ceiling wouldn’t be able to handle the weight.