Welcome to my Kitchen

You know what room is horribly underrepresented in this blog? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the title of this post.

I was thinking, it doesn’t make sense that I haven’t talked about the kitchen at all because it’s one of the more completed rooms in the house. The theme I have going on with the kitchen is “world travel.” This is where awesome international stuff and souvenirs come to live since none of them are quite intense (read: big) enough to stand alone as an accent piece in another room. So I have grouped them in here. They also help when I’m at a loss for making meals… I look around the room and get inspired to make an interesting international dish.

Below is a shot of when you step into the kitchen. You see the sink and counter. Yes, that is the extent of our counter space. In the WHOLE kitchen. See those cabinets? Also the extent of our cabinet space (plus one above the fridge). Storage is at a premium here. Hence the hanging basket which you can glimpse on the left part of the image.

Out of view (to the right of the picture) is the oven. When the old one broke the landlord had to search and wait for a backordered 27 inch oven. Because our kitchen is tiny and a normal sized one won’t fit.

On the left side of the picture, where you can see the top of the trash can, is a wierd 7 foot tall column thingy. It really makes the room smaller and is kind of ponitless. But behind it is sort of counter space, I suppose, it has an outlet and is where our toaster oven lives (we’ve chosen to live without a microwave).

When you stand next to the trash can, you can see our breakfast nook. This was invaluable before we got a dining room table–we ate all our meals here and still eat most of our meals here. The benches look built-in but they are movable.

The 6 photos on the wall are pictures Doug and I took overseas in Dublin, Morocco(2), Rome, Paris, and London. They’re kind of our pride and joy :) The other two (poorly aligned–they should be closer together) canvases are images of Moroccan slippers and mirrors, picked up at Earthbound in Salina (buy one get one free!) And on the third wall of the breakfast nook, there are coffee bags we got from a local coffee shop for $5 a piece. Possibly my favorite decorative items in the whole apartment.

Questions? Comments? I’d love your feedback on one of my favorite rooms in our place.

How to Clean a Pot

Well folks, disaster struck. Sunday, some leftover curry lentil soup got heated up on too high of a setting, and about half of it remained on the bottom of Still Pretty New Wedding Cookware in a thick layer. I didn’t take a before shot (or an after shot for that matter) but I’ll let you get the idea from this photo of a burned-out forest. Catching my drift?

Burned forest

If this was just any old cheapo pot it may have been it’s last day. However, this was my part-of-a-set, Paula Deen copper bottom pot (the medium one, my favorite size) so lots of effort was put into cleaning this thing.

First I tried my usual, “just boil some water and it should break the debris up” trick. This almost always works. Except for this time. The layer was just too thick. So I soaked the pan overnight and tried again. No dice.

Next, I had some vinegar on hand since I was cleaning my coffee maker anyway, so I poured some vinegar into the pan and let it sit. Nothing happened. This is where Doug comes in.

Doug says, “oh, vinegar, it’s a weak acid. At work we boil acid to clean our glassware.” So commences the boiling of the vinegar. And the tearing up of the eyes. And the opening of the kitchen window even though it was freezing outside. DO NO TRY THIS AT HOME. Acid fumes are not fun. Later he tells me that they have a hood that sucks the fumes out of the lab when they’re doing that. Of course they do. We don’t. Important difference.

This brings us to the last technique, the one that worked. At this point I turned to our friend the Internet for help. The method I used was to put 2 tbsp baking soda into 1 cup water (actually I doubled this formula, to 4 and 2) and make a solution. Then boil this solution for 15 minutes.

Lo and behold, after boiling for fifteen minutes and what seemed like hours of scrubbing, the pot was cleaned.

No, this is not my photo either. But now my pot IS this clean.

So, now you know. Do not use vinegar unless you’re staging a WWI mustard gas reenactment. Too soon?

The Search is Over

Ever since the wedding, and even before the wedding, I have had my heart set on a multi-opening picture frame for photos of the event. Not the most original idea in the universe, I know, but I thought it would be a more tasteful way to display my pictures than having them in small frames all over the room. So I looked at Kohl’s, Target, and Hobby Lobby (my home-decor resources are limited due to where I live) and couldn’t find the perfect one. Granted, the one I had in mind was more or less exactly what my friend got from Costco in 2008 so the chances of finding the exact same one were limited. BUT!  The search for the perfect multi-window picture frame has come to an end, as I found, ordered, and received one from Crate & Barrel! Here’s the frame…

Here’s what it would look like in my expertly-styled entryway (assuming I had the extra $100 to get two more of them)…

But all joking aside, I really do have a picture of how it turned out with pictures of me and people I know in it instead of strangers and strangers’ pets. And it was a one day job, thanks to Wal-Mart being able to print an 8×10 in-store. Trust me, the only time I’ll endorse Wal-Mart is for the photo lab.

Funny story, about actually getting the frame. You may have noticed me talking about never seeming to connect with the UPS/FedEx guy (due to being at work) and how a few intended packages have slipped away. Like the mystery package from Georgia I never got and don’t know who it’s from. Anyway, yesterday as we were shutting down Amics and I was taking the trash out to the dumpster, I saw the FedEx truck, ran over, and waited till the guy came back. I signed for my package and asked him to please leave it at the door even though I wouldn’t be home. Worked like a charm.

That was a little rabbit trail, wasn’t it? Well, here it is, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Let’s play another round of Watch Staci’s Camera Turn Straight Lines into Bended Lines! I mean, um, a picture of the finished product.

I’m not as into black-and-white as the Crate & Barrel product stylists are. I like to think I’m a little more colorful than that. Not to say that I won’t someday put black and white pics in it. Just not today.