Dining and Opining

In addition to collecting recipes for friends , I've also been working on my own recipe collection in the past few months. Specifically, I was fed up with the huge bulging folder that held little torn-out magazine pages and scraps of paper with recipes scribbled in ten different inks. Those of you who cook will likely know what I'm talking about, right?  It was a mess to find anything in there. And so, I decided to bring some organization to the whole thing, by creating a recipe binder. Here are the steps I went through in my search for order: The first thing I did was go through all of the pages and tape or staple all the little scraps onto 8.5"x11" sheets of scratch paper.  Then I numbered all the pages, in the lower right corner.   Then I typed up the titles of all the recipes into a Word document, along with the corresponding page number.  Finally, I organized these recipes by general category (Sauces, Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Sides, Main Dishes, Bre...

Last weekend, I got to spend another delightful evening at our friends' co-op (the same one that inspired our Pantry Makeover ). Although I didn't get a photo of the inspiring bulk storage section (mostly because it was on the empty side since it was right before re-stocking day), I did get a few kitchen organization ideas from their space, and I also got to eat some delicious food in the company of some of Madison's finest. Here is their spice arrangement. Although it may be hard to tell from this photo, this wooden shelf extends from the ceiling and hangs down over a wooden island in the middle of the kitchen, where much of the prep work goes on. There's space on the top of the shelf for one level of spices, neatly labeled, and then there's a second level that hangs down from the shelf. The spices on that second level are all in glass jars and they are so neatly suspended because their lids have been screwed into the bottom of the shelf. So, when you want to use...

Last September, Justin and I attended a talk by Renegade Lunch Lady, Ann Cooper , at Madison's annual Food for Thought Festival .  Chef Ann is well known for re-making the school lunch systems in several cities across the country, especially in Boulder, Colorado. At the talk, everyone in the audience was given a copy of the calendar that the Boulder Valley School District parents had received that included the weekly lunch menus (hopefully these were just extras that were left over, rather than ones they'd printed for us). This calendar had some beautiful drawings of food by a local Colorado artist.  I saved this calendar after the talk, thinking maybe some day I'd get around to using those drawings. Well, this winter, that day had come. Towards the end of getting some new wall hangings in our house, I cut out each of the drawings and arranged them in a large frame that I had found by the trash near our home (and that I'd also been saving for some time--notice a theme...

A couple of months ago, we visited the kitchen of the co-op where a few of our friends live, and left with  some serious pantry envy. The organization and riches of their bulk items were a true sight to behold. And so, when we finally found time for some deep cleaning and re-organizing of our home over the winter break, one of the top priorities was figuring out a way to structure our pantry items to make them more accessible and visible. So, along with the help of some re-used food containers and a few purchased ones we turned our back shelves in our kitchen (which had previously held various appliances and hardware items) into a bulk food display: Looking at this makes it easy to see what we could make for dinner, what we're running low on, and what we could be inspired by.  So much food potential in one place!