Monday Night Dinner

Some people fantasize about wine, women and song.  Some people fantasize about fast cars and faster men.  Some people fantasize about winning the lottery.  I fantasize about the ideal kitchen.  Well okay, I also fantasize about winning the lottery because really who doesn’t want to win the lottery, quit work and travel a lot?  And with the money, I’d be able to design my fantasy kitchen.

The kitchen I have now is admittedly a step up from the kitchen in my first apartment which only had one plug outlet.  You could either make coffee or toast, but not both at the same time or you’d blow the fuses for half the apartment.  Our landlord never understood why we thought this was an issue.  When my roommate and I were first looking at our current apartment I actually asked if it was possible to run more than one appliance at a time in the kitchen.  I decided it was a good sign when our landlady looked at me like I was crazy and said that, yes of course you could.

However, that being said, my kitchen is inconveniently designed and if I had all the money in the world, and I wasn’t constrained by trifling realities like where the gas line is piped in, and where water pipes are located (and it wasn’t an apartment I was renting), I’d rip out the kitchen and start from scratch.  Actually, if I had all the money in the world I’d buy a house that had a kitchen approximately the size of my living room and dining room combined with so much counter space it’s measured in terms of acreage.

I want so much counter space that I don’t know what to do with all of it.  I want enough counter space for a microwave, a coffee maker, a toaster oven, a blender, a mixer (one of the pretty kitchen aid ones that comes in bright and cheerful colors), bins for flour and sugar and coffee and tea, and still have room left over to cool trays of cookies and roll out pie dough and chop vegetables for dinner.  And, I want some of it to be right next to my stove, instead of halfway across the kitchen.

I want cupboard space at a reasonable height.  I know I’m short, but I object to needing a step ladder to get to things I use daily.  I want a vent over the oven so that when I make fish the entire apartment doesn’t smell like it – particularly since I don’t have my father in residence to walk around the apartment slowly swinging a pan of hot vinegar water to dispel the smell*.  I also want a dishwasher, because Dinner will stage a rebellion if our next kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher.

The only thing I have now that I really wouldn’t change is my gas stove.  In fact, what I really want Rachel Ray’s gas stove with the beautiful porcelain front and top opening broiler.  According to Wikipedia – which is the font of all pop culture knowledge – it’s a Model 61C Chambers Stove from the 1950s, and I’m not the only one who covets it.

Oddly enough, when we got our first apartment the gas stove was the thing I disliked most about it.  I was halfway convinced that we’d all wake up dead of carbon monoxide poisoning one morning, or that I’d accidentally set things on fire (oven mitts, towels, recipes, myself).  So far, neither one of those things has happened.  Instead I’ve been completely converted to wonders of gas stoves and can’t imagine living without one.

What I really want above all else is space for people to sit and talk to me while I cook.  In my experience everyone ends up in the kitchen anyway, particularly in the winter when the kitchen is the warmest part of the house, and it’d be nice if there was somewhere for them to sit.  There’s an old pine table that my parents have had forever.  Over time it’s been waxed and worn down to a silky smooth polish, and it has a faint comforting smell of beeswax.  It has a crack down the middle, and a long single drawer for a few placemats, or a tablecloth.  It’s the perfect size to hold a scattering of magazines and oven mitts and still have room to sit down and gossip.  It moved around the world with us when I was little.  It was the kitchen table in the eat-in kitchen that was more eat-in than kitchen.  It was hidden around the corner and half forgotten in the incredibly awkwardly split room kitchen.  It was relegated to the basement as a work table when the kitchen was too small.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure where it is now.  If I lived nearer my parents, I’d lay claim to it in expectation of eventually owning a kitchen large enough to house it, because it’s everything I want in a kitchen table.

* Yes, my parents actually do this.  It works – kind of – but that doesn’t make it less entertaining to watch

Grilled Cajun Chicken Salad with Spicy Ranch Dressing
Popovers
Champagne

Grilled Cajun Chicken Salad with Spicy Ranch Dressing

Recipe previously given:  Cajun Chicken Salad

Candied Nuts
Recipe previously given:  Cajun Chicken Salad
(part of the Grilled Cajun Chicken Salad recipe)

Popovers

Recipe previously given:  Epiphanies & Beets

Champagne
For no reason except we bought champagne flutes this weekend and wanted to have an excuse to use them.  Also, it’s vain, but I enjoy my reputation for being able to produce champagne at the drop of a hat.