The Use It Up Kitchen

I can't believe I am joining the blogosphere. Don't get me wrong, I read a lot of great blogs with great writing, great thoughts, and great cooking (!!) and I've gained a great deal. But I've never been one to keep a journal, and find too much airing of trivial personal details to be a bit, well, personal.

But I am, so here goes. This blog should help us prepare for the renovation of our 1917 quasi-bungalow kitchen in Chicago, by helping us use up our (many, many) pantry provisions, and to use up (or re-purpose, or recycle, or donate) as much of our current kitchen as possible. For example, we plan to use a large number of our existing (80s white) kitchen cabinets in our nearly finished garage (the "garage mahal"; more on that later, I suppose), after I paint over all the horrid oak veneer on the drawers and find reasonably priced handles and counter top. I also want to develop a collection of as many recipes as possible before we begin that are healthy, delicious, and easy to make in a make-shift basement kitchen. Other bungalow ponderings such as thoughts on keeping the kitchen historically accurate while gaining thoroughly modern function, and where to source high quality, yet reasonably affordable kitchen pieces and parts may also be aired from time to time. I've looked around and haven't found a blog yet that does all this for me, so here goes!



(In this photo, you can see a bit of the offending kitchen, and more importantly, the world's best cooking helper!!)