Good question, rhome. I decided to look it up to be sure I had the right definition. According to epicurious.com, mise en place is "(a) French term referring to having all the ingredients necessary for a dish prepared and ready to combine up to the point of cooking." (source: Barron's Educational Services, Inc. 1995 based on The Food Lover's Companion, 2nd edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst.)

I like your system. I may have to adapt it for our family. Sure would take the guess work out of "what's for dinner" question that rolls around every day.

Hello, I'm Donka, and I'm a messy cook.

There, I said it.

I spread out like nobody's business. I'm a huge soup, stew and casserole maker, I love experimenting while I'm cooking and the counter top shows it :) If I pull out a spice or seasoning, it pretty much sits on the counter until the dish is done or I've concluded that indeed, I have enough red pepper flakes in there.

I also believe in the right tool for the job, which when I'm cooking up a big meal can mean A LOT of dishes for the prep work. Thank goodness for dishwashers!

My DH loves to cook too, so we've taken to splitting up meals sometimes. I'll do the main, he'll do the sides, that kind of thing.

We also both work full time, so week night meals are usually simple, but on the weekend watch out! I'd love to be one of those people who stops at the market and picks up what I'm making for dinner that day, but we just don't have the time. Plus, I cook on a whim, and like to have lots of ingredients at hand should I decide I want a particular something for dinner that day. That translates into lots of stored, dried and canned goods, and lots of frozen items I can pull out to satisfy my desire. Fresh veg comes from the garden, except in winter, and even then I've been known to go out with a shovel and dig under two feet of snow to get those carrots I know are down there in the dirt somewhere!

Translated into kitchen: lots of counter space, zones for 2 cooks to prep, big pantry, a big range top so 2 cooks can check their stuff at the same time, an extra freezer in the basement plus lots of space for guests to help out too.

My cooking is mostly dinners for the 3 of us, but dinner here is usually like a good restaurant meal. I don't know how this evolved! Sometimes I wish we were mac-and-cheese folks but mostly I really enjoy it. Even when life is way too stressful and hectic, something about that 6:00-ish hour... I stop whatever work or project I am working on, pour a glass of wine, and decide what to make. Normally this is driven by what's ripe in the garden (half the year) or what I have removed from our huge freezer of our own veggies and local meats that needs to be used. Tonight, for example, I had seen that we're having a deep frost tomorrow, so that means I will probably lose the gorgeous cilantro in the garden. plus I'd just harvested the last of the broccoli and dug the potatoes, and I had a pumpkin that had fallen and split that I couldn't put into storage. So I typed my ingredients into epicurious.com: "chicken, pumpkin, cilantro" and by looking at the results, I decided to make an Indian curry with the all those vegs and cilantro. Then I just made it up. I also do mis en place for cooking like this... so for me I wanted: great stove with high BTUs and low simmer, lots of counter space, accessible trash and compost (I can sweep the prep counter right into the open trash bin- love that!). And of course, a view of the garden :)

I make dinner. I'm always in a rush, and trying to get out of the kitchen asap every night! I just needed more organization and functionality so I'd try to enjoy it all more.
My reno mostly involved changing where the appliances were situated, and by doing so, I got the much needed extra counterspace. My number one goal was to get the pantry and fridge side by side nearer the prep zone, (not at the ends of counter runs), and get the giagantic MW off the counter.

I do a lot of cooktop and MW cooking. My Mom taught me how to do everything from rice to a roux in the MW. So, it made sense for me to splurge on the Sharp Micro Drawer. I didn't discover this till after the reno is almost done - but I am totally grooving on having TWO MWs. The old countertop unit is in the utility room and I plan on keeping it there.

With doing a lot of cooktop cooking, getting a good vent that vents to the outside was priority.

As for the other appliances, I just wanted an upgrade, but I don't require professional. Plllog (forever grateful to her!), made me realize that I really did want to keep a wall oven, so I gave up that counter space, and treated myself to a SS KitchenAid. That was upscale enough for me and I am SO glad about that decision.
Good thread, I am interested in reading more. This will surely help others.

After this long without a kitchen I can't even remember what I used to cook! Seriously.

We are both retired.

Fall and winter-homemade soups, stews, chili-hearty meals 3/4 times week. Other days it's a salad or out to eat at different restaurants.
Summer-lots of outdoor grilling on the deck off the DR.

Only bake around the holidays and end up giving most away to family and friends.
I'd love to bake more but DH isn't into that. Any time invited out I always get tapped for the dessert. I make a mean tiramisu.
Love experimenting with international dishes-Mexican, Italian, Thai, etc. We travel a lot so like to create at home what we've enjoyed abroad.

Use organic ingredients when possible, lots of fresh herbs and spices.
I use recipes, DH cooks on instinct and he's the better cook!

When I designed our home with our builder 31 yrs. ago I made sure I would have lots of counter space, lots of cabinets, and a nice pantry. Of course, by today's standards, my kitchen now would be considered small/medium but it works just fine for the 2 of us.

fern4 - i'm with you. we just got back into our kitchen this week and i can't remember what i used to cook. i've been spending time reading thru the cooking forum.

This question and responses did strike a chord with me! I definitely agree with your KD because the food you cook really drives the features you'll find useful in your kitchen.

I cook primarily vegetarian food. On a daily basis the food I cook is pretty simple but it does need finite amount of chopping/cutting etc. Also a whole lot of stir frying, but quite a bit of baking -- not so much of cookies and cakes but just roasting veggies etc. Possibly when DD is upto it,I'll bake cookeis too! So here is what I have found to be useful for mine:

A large prep surface. If you cook with veggies, you cannot escape lengthy cleaning/chopping prep step. Also, you need to chop herbs, garlic, onions, spices etc and therefore you need LOTS of prep space. I think in my kitchen I'll try to incorporate an island for this. I might include a prep sink on it but try to put nothing else. All that chopping needs space!

I also use a lot of gadgets. Food chopper, processor, slow cooker, blender etc. so I'll need some organization for these.

Zones would be great. My SIL and MIL visit us for long periods and I've learnt that separating cooking spaces is one way in which I could co-exist without being pushed out :-).

I need quite a few pots. When I'm cooking for large groups I like to add a differnt set of ingredients in all the dishes -- so it is necessary to cook them in separate pots so the flavors do not get transfered to another dish. That would need storage for all the pots.

Also to add to this: I'm also a slob. I want a kitchen that would be as low maintenance as possible. I hate spending time cleaning. That means, medium stained cabs (light and dark show stains) -- and large uninterrupted spaces of countertop (easy to clean). Not to mention space for everything.

I used to say I bake because I want to and I cook because I have to. However, my new kitchen with work zones and efficient appliances has inspired me to try new things and now cooking is my new hobby. I mostly bake cookies, pies and quick breads. If I had a free day (and didnt have to go to work) IÂd spend it baking. I enjoy it that much, plus I use it as a stress-reliever. Summertime is filled with jelly making and canning.

Yeas before the remodel I had a list of things I wanted: 2 ovens for cookie baking; 2 sinks  the 2nd one near the exterior door for family to use to wash their hands (we live on a dairy farm); and 5 or more burners on the cooktop. Extras I got were a baking center, an island with sink, and a hutch that the cabinet maker made from a sketch I drew. We chose appliances for what they can do and reliability  some were splurges.

Because we live in a 1790s stone farmhouse with 2-ft thick exterior walls and an arch cellar under the kitchen, we were limited to where things went in the kitchen. Our cabinet maker came to our house with his CAD program along with the kitchen planner and contractor to help design the layout. Before plans were finalized, I decided where baking supplies, ingredients, dishes, pans, silverware, bowls, etc would go and planned the size of cabinets and drawers accordingly. Is that what you call the "mise en place" method?

Overall, the functionality of the kitchen has greatly improved from my previous one. I enjoy "working" in it, which is the best reward of all!

The bonus to our remodel is I found GW and I guess you could say that also is my new hobby! :)

I think it is a good place to start - being asked to think about how you cook. 5 days a week I roll in the door after work and just want to get something decent on the table. Or my DH is cooking - same goals. On weekends, especially as it turns cooler - I make a lot of soups, stews, and slow cooked things that I can't make during the week. And then there is the occasional entertaining - mostly casual, mostly family.

But don't just think about how you cook now - think about how you would like to cook. Some of the issues that drove me were about things I wanted to be able to do and just didn't because it was such a PITA. I love to bake but hardly ever did - now I have been baking again almost every weekend. Now I have the counterspace and the oven to make it fun again.

I do mostly family meal cooking (for the 4 of us) with some occasional baking thrown in. A long counter space was essential for me because I like to spread out when I cook. I have an island that is 117" long and there are no appliances/sinks in it so it's one long countertop. I love it. Had our first party on Halloween and that space was GREAT for a buffet.

I wanted a convection oven ( had one before but it didn't work all that great--my new one is terrific and I use it all the time) and a glasstop that had multiple burner configurations. I always hated needing to use two large pans and only having one large burner.

I thought about a wall oven but didn't want to give up the wall cabinets so got a range. I'm happy with that, although when I was making snacks for the party, I sort of wished I had two ovens, although the convection oven made quick work of all the snacks. I guess we'll save that for the next remodel!!

Loved reading your confessions, southernstitcher, donka, and homey_bird! plllog - "I regularly cook for 25, occasionally for 50." Wow! I don't think I've ever had to cook for that large of a crowd. Restaurant-style meals, stacyneil? I'd like to come to dinner at your house! ;-)

Then again, I'd like to come take cooking lessons from a number of you. I have gotten quite rusty of late, not because I have a good excuse of no kitchen like fern and mahlgold but because my life has been much too busy for several years and I've become sloppy and lazy. Shame on me. I've been working towards a better balance in life after I realized that my week off in September was my first non-working vacation in 3 years (stressed a bit, ya think?). Anyhoo, trying to assess how I cook and how that applies to our kitchen's design has been, uh, a bit of a challenge memory-wise.

? for those of you with kitchen gardens: did you place your prep sink (if you have one) and prep space closest to the door you use to access your kitchen garden? I didn't think of this tip until I saw a kitchen with a prep sink for garden produce right next to the back door. Such a smart idea!

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. I sure hope others post. I know this has been helpful to me and I'm sure it will be helpful to others.

? for those of you with kitchen gardens: did you place your prep sink (if you have one) and prep space closest to the door you use to access your kitchen garden?

Technically, though it was planned for that reason, I guess my prep sink is closest to the way I come in from the garden (through the front yard, across the driveway, across the front porch, in the front door and through the entry, through the back hall and pantry area to the island sink), but it's such a long trip, I don't think it counts! ;-)

Love to cook, don't always have time.

Work zones! Wet (produce/sink), dry (cutting board), tiny baking, & fire.

I have one kitchen rule: nothing on my counters. You say you want gadgets but you want things easy to clean. My suggestion is that you design your cupboards/kitchen so that all your gadgets are accessible but easy to hide. I have almost no gadgets and everything is hidden. If I wanted counter appliances I would build deep cabinets and have uppers all the way to the counter so that the bottom doors opened to all various gadgets to pull forward while in use. The counters would be the easiest to clean material I could summon.

It's better to have more of this space than less so I would allow for more lower counters space all around. If it's more than you need gadgets this could become additional storage (flours, spices, coffee/tea, whatever).

When I said, "Technically, though it was planned for that reason," it was supposed to say NOT planned...

Cooking is something I have grown to love. When we were married, I had no idea how to make the most basic dishes. If the directions were on the box, I would manage. The joke was - we may as well love it, because this is what's for dinner.

I don't know if it is the challenge and creativity of making a good meal or eating it that I find the most enjoyable. We seldom eat out because there are no good restaurants for 30 miles. Then those are chain restaurants that are surround nearly every mall. We are vegetarian. While the choices at a restaurant are better than 30 years ago, they are not great. The meals at home are tastier and healthier than restaurant food.

I always thought I was a messy cook, but I am seeing things differently. I just didn't have enough room to work without washing up while I was making a meal. I prefer to clean up the kitchen once rather than wash each item as I use it. As the sink and counter would accumulate dirty stuff, my prep area shrank. It was hard and frustrating to work! With a place to put the dirty utensils and dishes out of the work area, it's not messy anymore!

To finally answer the OPs question: I rarely use a recipe for cooking. (Baking, I always use a recipe.) Most meals start with a vague notion of what I want to make. Sometimes I pull out a few veggies and start prepping. Onions and garlic are standbys, and I often use mushrooms. By the time I get to the method of cooking and the spices I've decided what kind of dish - curry, Asian, Italian, Mexican, etc. We almost always have potatoes, rice, pasta or bread/biscuits with a meal. If something is especially good I write down the list of ingredients. Prep space is 40'' x 40''. It's next to a sink and opposite the cooktop.

All I can say is I truly miss my old kitchen. I have been trying to cook more but I think my island and 36" pantry with pullouts and electricity were my life savers. I have so little pantry space and even though I have quite a bit of counter space it is chopped up and to me practically unusable. I keep hoping I will wake up and my old kitchen will appear in this house. Oh Well!

I love gadgets and thus having no pantry they sit on the counter. I am hoping that we can build a pantry in the spring but it seems everytime I hope for a home improvement project my dh's health gets worse.

Hello camarodreamer67, sorry you had to leave your old kitchen behind.

I'm with you on hating clutter. I don't keep much on my counters - toaster, espresso machine and knife block - and my goal with the remodel is to get all of my knives in the knife drawer. I'm also planning for better storage for my small appliances. Right now they are housed in a 26" deep cabinet without pull-outs. I'm planning a shallow (15" deep) cabinet to make it easier to get at these items.

cotehele, one of my college roommates takes the prize for messiest cook I've ever met. Do you remember that funny commercial where the mother made Rice Krispie squares and dusted herself liberally with flour to make it look like she'd slaved over them? It was like that. Roomie and kitchen wore a layer of whatever she was cooking with. At least she always cleaned up her messes! And her meals were delicious, too.

I'm with cotehele - 90% of my recipes start with onion, garlic and mushrooms if I have them. I'm actually enjoying cooking more now that I have my first functional/spacious/thought out kitchen in our 42 year marriage! I very seldom follow a recipe - always seem to add seasonings or other ingredients to "tweak it," and the only time I really have repercussions is when I try to do that with something I bake.

I don't bake, except some pumpkin or zucchini bread (sounds healthy anyway) to give to our friends and the local fire station. (DH is a retired firefighter so I know those firefighters like the Christmas goodies!)

aah,er(as she ducks) I don't cook very much anymore. Are you ready for this? Dh eats one meal a day, most often a sandwich on a good bagel for dinner, with America's favorite vegetable, potato chips, and a coke. High gourmet! He is very, very slim and doesn't want to gain weight. He is quite disciplined. If he has lunch on Wednesday, he won't eat til Thurs. nite. When I cook something simple, which is all I do these days, he says it's good, but please don't cook because then I eat too much of your good cooking and I'm uncomfortable. He is also very stubborn. And that meal would be broiled steak/chicken, baked pot, steamfresh corn, nuked (one of very few vegetables he'll eat. He only drinks coke, no wine, booze, doesn/t like the taste of alcohol, no juice, coffee, milk, nothing but real coke. No desserts but on an occasional morning, at work, he will proclaim that a muffin is NOT a dessert, but a grain and he will partake. Once or twice a week, he'll take 4, not 3 or 5, but 4 wheat thins with a noon coke. Lunch. What a dangerously living bon vivant. We've been married for 34 years. It's an old resolved fight that I've given up and truly don't care. He's healthy and not malnourished-it seems he shd be, but he is ok.

I don't care much about food anymore either So I love the absence of pressure to do a great meal, and I enjoy psyching myself to take food off a pedestal and keep my priorities straight. I've gained a lot of weight, from inactivity, severe untreated obstructive sleep apnea and who knows-seeing several doctors who are diligently working with me. If I told myself what I eat, I wouldn't believe it either. I've been reasonably slim, active, (former exercise teacher) almost all my adult life, (size 4) and past few yrs, morbidly obese.

Every 2-4 days I will roast or broil a bunch of boneless, skls, chicken breasts and use for sandwiches, big salads. We do eat leftovers and we never require the variety of most. In high school, for 3.5 years, dh ate the same kind of sandwich 5 days a week, straight. Kosher salami and egg.
So you can understand our blank stares when ppl say, Oh, I can't make/eat that as we had that yesterday. Dh and I think so what? lol
Had to cook dinner tonite. 10 yr. old grandson came over and potential out of state diner. (A fellow Un of Montana student was stranded at O'hare on his way home to Connecticut. So he'll sleep and eat here. Nice kid.) Here's my cooking. Scrambled and drained a lb of ground sirloin, added to a jar of Chunky Ragu, extra garlic from jar, (dusty garlic press), over pasta shells for them and carba-noodle for me. (Sure I used to make real spag sauce, tom sauce, paste, onions, garlic, mushrooms,meats, tad carrots. For what? So that I could clean spatters for 40 minutes, rather than 5? Tastes, to us, almost as good.
Nuked Costco organice broccoli, plain, and bagel for dh. fini. Defrosted homebaked lemon squares. Fit for westsider royalty.

We've both eaten well much of our lives. My mil was a wonderful cook who could copy any restaurant meal. She had the full blown dinner,nitely, & a home baked dessert 3-5 nites a week.
I retired 1n '94 but until then I was wined and dined at great restaurants all over the country. The bad side was that I infrequently ate the signature or fancy dishes, sticking to dinner salads to maintain my lbs. And we do go out once in a while and enjoy, which we do. But we probably enjoy it less than normal people. lol We are not normal, never said so.
Even if I get inspired in my new kitchen, no one will eat it. Truthfully most of the time, I don't want to cook anymore. I did cook, not bake much. I can cook but sometimes I negatively say, mutter, mutter, it's all about chopping vegetables, mutter, mutter. And then I have to clean it up, put it away, and throw it out later. And I'm frugal. So work? and then toss?

Two microwaves, and a secret hankering for vending machines.

When I planned my kitchen I thought about the regular stuff (cooking for the entire week on Sunday afternoons) but I also thought about things that occur a few times a year. I wanted multiple work areas so that multiple people could be working at once. DH's three kids live in different parts of the country and every year or so they all converge (with their families) on our house for four days in the summer or around Thanksgiving. Everyone cooks at some point and often three of us cook at the same time. I also do this with my sister (and our spouses) and on occasion a few friends so having a space that worked for me alone and multiple cooks was really important.

I cook anything -- I love trying new recipes. I cook to de-stress. I bake too!!

I hate clutter on the counter so I have a big easily accessed pantry closet (all my small electrics go in there). The only things on our counter are the coffeemaker, utensil cups by the stove, the drain rack, and my big kitchenaid mixer (thing is too heavy to haul in and out of the closet) tucked in a corner. I don't own a lot of kitchen stuff. It takes me forever (or at least a year) to buy anything new for the kitchen. I was the last person on the planet to buy a food processor (LOL).

. . . It's not easy, unless you keep a log. After thinking about it, I think we cook pretty conventional Western stuff with no particular culinary style, plus some Chinese dishes.

For example, stuff I remember making recently:
- carrots, braised in butter sugar and beer, carmelized, glazed w/ reduced liquid
- pork short ribs, broiled after marinating in soy sauce sesame oil rice wine garlic ginger scallions
- chicken, pan-seared and broiled, skin separated and crisped with torch
- leg of lamb, brined, roasted with garlic rosemary bread crust
- tilapia filets, sauteed in butter and milk, reduced to sauce
- albondigas soup, with pork-cilantro meatballs (DD's new favorite soup)
- potato-leek soup with wasabi (DD's former favorite soup)
- hot and sour soup, standard Cantonese type
- chicken and beef pies, with assorted veg in filling, puff pastry top
- shepherd's pie (these meat pies get frozen for a quick meal later)
- goat stew, using a beef stew recipe
- beef stew (better than the goat version)
- pork liver pate
- chicken hearts, braised in red wine
- pork tongue, sliced thin and fried in butter-olive oil
- wok cooked garlic chicken with candied walnuts
- wok cooked beef with bok choy
- spinach, creamed with shallots
- corn, creamed
- pumpkin and apple pies (SWMBO does all the baking)
- apples, baked, filled with sugar-cinammon, wrapped in phyllo
- pancakes with chocolate chips and chocolate milk (DS' speciality)
- roesti, with and without cheese
- omelets, variously made to order
- eggs benedict
- shitake mushroom, tomato, barley soup
- cream of mushroom soup, w/ scratchmade mushroom stock
- chicken wings, the standard bar happy hour version
- roasted duck wings (an unsuccessful attempt to make duck a happy hour treat)
- raw oysters with migonette (okay, actually no "cooking" involved)
- pan-seared scallops
- traditional chicken soup (this was when swine flu hit our home)
- and various forgettable dishes, all the way down to microwaved soybeans - sometimes no-one has time to cook.
- gosh, it sounds like no-one eats any fruit or vegetables around here. Well, it is true we should eat more, but honestly I do cook vegetable dishes, I just forget most of them because they are so boring.
Going over the list, I see its mostly on the burners, and I'm often wishing those were hotter and more numerous. I'd use the wok far more often if we had more heat and more venting.

Whenever alcohol gets added to the sautee pan, l light it off - just too much fun to resist - but have killed a OTR microwave this way so next kitchen will be more robust. Steel and tile everywhere and no electronics.

I don't do much delicate saucing or holding or melting, we have a bain marie that collects dust, so even though I know a French top would give me thrills of francophilia, I doubt I'll get one. Same for the gorgeous French ranges.

We sometimes wish we had another oven, but never wish for a "better" oven - they all work fine for us.

A broiler is a must have item since the grill outside is unusable for much of the year.

And - more prep space!

Of course, there is what we actually cook, and what we'd like to cook. Sometimes we get in a little rut, and need to try new things.

I'm in sort of a rut now, but have been making a list of what I'd like to try and learn:
- More Chinese cooking. I'm not inspired to do too much stirfrying until we do the kitchen, since both heat and ventilation are sorely lacking now, but plenty of Chinese food is steamed, boiled, broiled, etc. And there are a lot of unusual tastes from my childhod that I want to recapture. When grandma (na na) made dinner, there were pigs knuckles, sea cucumber, chicken necks, 1000 year eggs in congee, dried fish - things I can't find in Chinese restaurants in PDX, the city is not exactly an Asian food mecca.
- Japanese cooking. I'd love to learn about this cuisine, it is one of my favorites. Of course, I'd need a Japanese knife. Any excuse to buy a new knife or three!
- Although right now I feel like I need a break from steaks, I would eventually like to be able to reliably produce a steakhouse-level steak - crusty brown charred exterior, deep red and buttery inside. And a big red wine. With a starter of escargots - I've been having snail cravings lately.

bump

I have a unique perspective because 1) I'm a guy, and 2) I'm a life-long tool & die maker. To me, a kitchen is a work space, no different to me than the shop full of machinery I work in. What does that mean? Lots of tools, in specifically designated spots close to where they'll be used. Lots of 'bench' space! Work stations set up for repetitive tasks, like having a place to sit down when doing a lot of prep work, or deboning chicken wings. And good task lighting is a must! Our current kitchen is a tiny galley, and considering both of us are cooks, it's surprising no one has gotten hurt, either accidentally, or on purpose. Most meat cooking, and some veggies, are done outside, on a variety of grills. Living in FL makes this a year-round possibility. We are planning to build next year on our rural property in SC, and the kitchen design is getting a lot of thought. I bake, so I'd like to have a lower counter for kneading big batches of dough. Standard counters are too high for this, unless you are very tall. I'd also like to have a section of marble or granite for rolling out doughs and pastries. I'm planning for a second sink, since DW somehow always has both bowls of our sink tied up- especially when I come in from the back yard with marinade dripping off of my elbows! Lastly, I despise overhead cabinets. DW is vertically challenged, so she can only easily reach the bottom shelf, and for me, they are always right in my face. Without the overhead cabinets, you can have more windows, and even hang some art work, or antique kitchen gadgets on the walls. It will be all bottom cabinets, and almost all drawers, since cabinets always have so much wasted space. All of the tool boxes where I work have drawers, not doors!

Our kitchen probably won't win any prizes in a design contest, but it should be homey, comfortable, and practical.
This home will be an 'empty nest', and hopefully our last, so it will be very small and simple. We are on a tight, tight budget, and it will all be DIY.

Right now, my favorite thing to make is Chocolate Chip cookies from Papa Murphy's! Hey I have been without any type of oven for three months now let alone one that sort of worked! LOL!

Glad to see some similar ideas.... lots of our recipes start with onions, celery, garlic... and I am definitely planning artwork on our walls and that top shelf of our two upper cabinets that I can't reach anyway!

Off to start Christmas dinner prep!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love, not War.

Happy Holidays!

Gargoyle,

I'm not sure you answered the question, but I've got to tell you, your viewpoint isn't all that unique. :) Your plans are right in step with current trends in kitchen design and the kind of kitchens we're planning here. If your prep sink can be near your baking station it can do double duty as a convenient lowered counter for your vertically challenged DW.

Welcome to the land of the TKO.

As for me, I just want it to be over so I can make some toast!

Okay, I am now officially tired of being in the kitchen. Put another way, I am Cooked Out By The Holidays. For all of January, we're eating quick-steamed fish and frozen edamame. Which will also help with being Porked Out By The Holidays.

I've decided to go with a 48" bluestar because the two ovens allow cooking at two different temperatures. I will make bread at 450, or "baked" french fries at a high temperature, while cooking a chicken that has to get turned down to 325 for the last 20 minutes.

I have no counter space currently and it's awful. Making lasagna is very difficult, so I hope to rectify this with a nice 4x5 foot island.

Right now, my favorite thing to make is Chocolate Chip cookies from Papa Murphy's!

LOL, earth_pal! I've eaten my share (okay, more than my share) of PM's chocolate chip cookies since our DS1 worked there for 2+ years. Now that he's at college, we miss the regular doses of pizzas and cookies.

Glad to see this thread still alive. The holidays added a new perspective, especially after jockeying for space to cook a holiday meal with my old 27" wall oven. I kept saying "next year this will be so much easier!" At a minimum I want a 30" oven, a MW/convection/speed cook oven and a warming drawer. I may also add a roaster to this mix. My MIL uses one to cook the turkey for family dinners and it works very well. And it's certainly cheaper than adding another oven to my plan.

I did learn, though, that you can make roasted carrots ahead of time and reheat them with good results in a hot oven for 10 minutes.

I also can't wait to have adequate counter space where I need it - the island. The holiday experience reinforced our decision to move the cooktop off the island. My hardest working bit of counter is the 16" to the left of the cooktop and it's definitely not big enough for all that we demand of it.

I forgot to mention, the thing I learned about kitchen design recently, in fact during the holidays, is that I want high counters (at least 37'', maybe 38''), not-too-deep a sink (8'' or so, I want to be able to touch the bottom with fingertips, without bending over), and the option of prepping while seated (doesn't need to be an armchair - a tall, moveable, swiveling stool would be fine).

My back went out a couple weeks before Christmas and all the prepping, cooking, washing since then have been somewhere in the "uncomfortably aching" to "distinctly painful" to "leaning on the counter for support" range of experiences.

I also learned:
- Don't spend 8 hours making aspic for your Christmas Eve dinner party. Very few people like aspic. All your time, cooking down 11 quarts of knuckles and necks to 3 cups of gelatinous consomme, will end up stashed in tupperware and tossed into soup stock. In effect, you've found the most laborious possible way to make boullion cubes.
- Snails have shrunk. If you compare your old set of escargot shells, that you've been carting around for 20 years and 8 addresses, to the new shells that you just bought, the new ones are significantly smaller. Which means that the snails you buy today are also smaller. Which means that, indeed, they don't make 'em like they used to, and also that you need more snails to feed a tableful of People Who Don't Like Aspic. Running out of snails frays the Christmas spirit rather more than it really should.
- You know how excited you got, when you learned that in the dead of winter, live oysters are available for a bargain $5.25 per dozen at the Chinese live fish market? And how you rushed to get a few dozen for your New Year's party? And cleaned and shucked them, made a mignonette, and proudly placed them on the buffet table on a bed of ice, prettily sprinkled with capers and lemon zest? Well, next time don't get excited. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a Cheap Tasteless Oyster. And you served a whole mess of them.

I cook because it's my job and I bake because it's my therapy as trailrunner said earlier. I would bake every day if I could. I'm hoping my new kitchen will inspire me to enjoy cooking more than I have.

Ooo...I'm happy to see this thread come back too :) I must report that my 'Messy Cook' problem has gotten significantly better with the new kitchen. It may be that my 3' of interrupted counter space before really did hamper my style. I did my first Christmas dinner and was actually pretty neat and tidy about it. What a difference a 'place for everything' makes!

I also re-discovered the joys of a husband who likes to cook. I've been working the last week and he's been on vacation and really giving the new kitchen a test drive and mmmmmmmm....I can't wait to be lavished with some more of his culinary creations :)

Johnliu, I love reading about your food!!! So much of it is stuff you'd have to pay me at least four figures to put in my mouth--it's kind of like watching the Japanese version of Iron Chef: All these talented people making wonderful looking/sounding stuff out of things one does generally think of as food (or the occasional chicken battle where they still manage to make something both wonderful and unfoodlike).

Kudos to the man who knows that escargot are smaller now because he's been nurturing shells for 20 years! (It's been about 15 years since I've had any, but I remember at the time thinking how large they were. I wonder if there are fashion trends in snail size, and they get bigger or smaller accordingly?)

(Scuffing toe) I seem to make a lot of custards. What certain people refer to as "slime". But they're only slime before they're cooked! Whether it's quiche or bread pudding or anything in between, people eat up the custards. Except those who don't eat "slime".

I loved reading this thread! To answer the question, "what do you like to make in your kitchen?" Comforting, rich, tastey food -- cakes, pastries, biscuits, (hmm.. a theme here)... anything with butter, fish, meats, stews...

What do I make now? A MESS! My tiny 40 yr old kitchen is a PITA to cook in. There is no counter space at all!

I cannot wait until I get to have my KA mixer and my food processer sitting out on my baking center ready to GO! They won't be hidden, but they sure will be handy. Right now its such a pain to drag out the food process that I usually just give up on the urge and don't do it. The KA is so cramped where it is between a wall and the dish drainer that it makes a huge mess whenever I use it, which is fairly often.

I love to bake and its impossible sometimes with a large cake to roll out fondant for the size of cakes usually requested. That nice cold granite is going to get a TON of use. (sigh.. dreamy expression). Double ovens with steam... mmm... crusty breads, succulent roasts.. It will be sooooo lovely to be able to bake or roast and not have to be a juggling act to coordinate oven times between multiple dishes.

Johnliu, I love reading about your food!!! So much of it is stuff you'd have to pay me at least four figures to put in my mouth...

LOL, plllog!! I am totally impressed with johnliu's cooking talent but I'm not so sure I'm adventurous enough to eat everything he makes (count me as one who would not eat aspic). That said, I have eaten escargot although it's been years since I have. Hubby likes to say that if you put enough butter and garlic on something, you can make almost anything palatable but he still would never eat escargot.

What do I make now? A MESS!

I hear you, cindyandmocha! I'm hoping that my messy habits will disappear with sufficient counter space in the right places.

And given what you wrote, donka, it looks like my wish will come true.

Back around 1992-ish, I read that the French edible escargot was no different from the garden snail common in your yard and mine. So I commanded a halt to all pesticide use, waited, then collected many dozens of snails from our gardens that had once held pretty flowers but were now overrun with snails, slugs, and bugs. I put these in a big tub of cornmeal and lettuce, which was supposed to clean them out, in preparation for slaughter. I think I'd read this procedure somewhere. I invited all our friends to the First Annual Snail Feed chez John. To my surprise, the regrets came pouring in by the bucket-load. When it became clear that no-one was going to attend the evening - not even SWMBO, and this was back when we were newly-weds and she was far more compliant - I was forced to cancel the event. My dreams of fortune and fame as the Father of California Escargot Farming died in that tub of snails oozing around in slimy cornmeal. Which even I have to admit was sort of an off-putting sight.

How to harvest snails and prepare them for slaughter

http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2008/06/snail-harvesting.html

How to slaughter and prepare snails

http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2008/06/snails-in-tomato-stew.html

John, I might have eaten your snails (they'd be fine if it weren't for that wiry little foot), but never your lovingly nurtured aspic!!! Or your raw beef. But I sure am having fun reading about them, and glad to have you broaden my mind, even if my palatte is balking at coming along for the rude.

johnliu, I've been told that many of the snails in our gardens are descendants of escapees from escargot "farms." I've also been told that slugs are a good substitute for snails but ewwww, sorry, I'm just not sure I can do that. I've stomped and snipped too many of them to think of them as food.

However, I know that when a Washington nursery (whose name escapes me at the moment) held their annual slug fest and included all kinds of wacky slug events such as slug eating, they had *many* takers. Perhaps it was some form of sweet revenge?

btw, the bull frogs in our area aren't native but descendants of escapees when the frog legs for restaurants industry went belly up several decades ago. They've become a serious invasive pest (blamed for decline of native red-legged frogs) so maybe your next scavenging culinary adventure should be a frog leg feast! After all, they are supposed to taste like chicken so maybe this will go over better with your less than adventurous friends. ;-)

Raw beef ... I've eaten steak tartare. I used to be more adventurous in my dining experiences but that was before marriage and kids. Not sure I can undo that influence.

In my current kitchen, I mostly make dinner, but it's 8x7'. I can really only do one dish at a time, which stinks, and I have to use a ladder for everything.

Oh, and johnliu? My DH is the mouth for you! He decided to join me one day in the garden as I was "desnailing" the plants. Our conversation went like this:

DH: What are you doing?
Me: Tossing snails into the grocery bag.
DH: (speculatively) Can we eat them?
Me: What??? No!!! We throw them away!
DH: Then what's the point?
Me: IT keeps them from eating my garden.
DH: You know, what I was a kid in China, my mom would send me out with a little spear to hunt frogs...
Me: I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!!!

He doesn't get the point of an animal that can't be eaten. Or a plant that can't be eaten, for that matter.

johnliu-what is SWMBO??

Ha ha - yes, old-school Chinese eat anything.

Chicken feet and necks, fish eyeballs and brains, stomachs and lungs, weird sea creatures, domestic animals. When I was little, my uncle took me to a restaurant that served dog - this was in some little town in the mountains of Taiwan - but they hadn't caught a dog that day, and I was very disappointed (my defense? I was little - I wouldn't eat a dog today - although, if they don't stop barfing on the rug, I may eat a cat soon).

SWMBO is "She Who Must Be Obeyed", per the classic British barrister books "Rumpole of the Bailey" by John Mortimer. Whose formidable wife, Hilda, only ever seemed to serve him "chop and two veg" at dinnertime.

Anyway, I have nothing new to contribute to this thread, as I've been on cooking strike since New Years. Some fish, steamed veg, lots of ramen, boring stuff. All the action has been with Ice Cream Boy, my newest bestest friend in the kitchen, and that's not cooking, is it.

With Chinese New Year coming up, it is time to get back on the horse, we'll have having hot pot (huo guo) dinners back-to-back this weekend - can't fit everyone into one night. Admittedly, hot pot is barely "cooking", but it is a start.

We've been slowly easing back into cooking at my house, after the holiday gluttony and post-gluttony revulsion. Still trying to keep it light (ish), no big lumps of roast beast.

Recently:
- risotto of thai pearl rice, sauteed in olive oil with shallots and then cooked in white wine and chicken stock, finished with butter. Yup, that's going to shrink the waistline.
- chicken breasts braised in milk and cream, with corn, capers, onions, and garlic. An old stand-by here.
- salad of wilted greens and blood oranges, dressed with olive oil and blood-orange-juice, topped with half-raw salmon slices and crispy salmon skin. Separate skin from filets, salt, fry until crisp, then julienne and sprinkle over the salmon. SWMBO complained about the raw state of the salmon, that Philistine.
- good old Basic Crab Cakes. I make this for the kids after an afternoon of watching SpongeBob SquarePants. I tell them these are ''krabby patties'' just like the ones served at the Krusty Krab, and thus try to trick them into eating crab. Never works, they insist that krabby patties are hamburger patties. How cows ever get to Bikini Bottom, they don't explain. Oh well, more crab cakes for me.
- pesto a la trappanese with cute little corkscrew pasta. With the unusually fine weather in the Pac NW lately, we had some friends over for a lunch to celebrate the coming of spring, so we wanted a break from cold-weather fare with this summertime dish. Finding tasty tomatoes in February is tough. All the $3/lb ''vine-ripened'' tomatoes at the grocery store tasted like cold cardboard, but Costco came through with some unseasonably yummy cherry tomatoes so we were able to make this tomato pesto after all.
- fried chow mein noodles with stir-fried ginger and garlic chicken and bok choi leaves. Build this up like a bird's nest in a wide, shallow bowl - noodles (nest), chiffonaded and just-wilted leaves (down), chicken (fledgling). Sprinkle with something red (fine dice of red bell pepper, or chopped beets) for color.
- comfort food from my youth, dan chao fan (egg fried rice). There is actually a trick to this - cook the rice a bit dry, then spread it on a sheet pan and leave it out overnight to dry out (or, 15 minutes under the broiler) - that allows the rice to be fried crisp rather than turning into hot mush. Then add scrambled eggs, scallions, and chinese pork sausage.

Perhaps I missed it when skimming, but it doesn't seem that anyone mentioned using kitchen for garden processing. Our kitchen will allow us to do lots of two-person preps and to process wild game and garden produce when these "can't delay it" events take place.

Our meals are extremely variable, depending on what the garden gives us. DH has a large veg garden. When the food is ready in the garden, we better be ready to to process it. We preserve using dehydration a lot, esp. tomatoes. Imagine the processing--wash, cut, deal with the discards and the juicy slop, arrange on dehydrator trays, run dehyrator, remove dried tomatoes, bag 'em up, store.

We also blanch and freeze many things, esp. green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, brussells sprouts.

I am increasing my basil plantings and make lots of pesto. My last frozen jar of pesto was used for New Year's meal, sigh.

We try to live off the land as much as possible, which gives us good organic food and emphasizes the kinds of nutrients we need, esp. for the spouse who has heart medicine.

We try to refrain from baking as much as possible--neither of us needs carbs and I am hoping to dodge the diabetes gig. But when the apple tree gives us a bounty, we need to deal with it. I made two pies last night--imagine having decent pie apples that last to February! I still have twelve onions from the 2009 garden and am using them sparingly to make them last.

We're trying to stay out of restaurants, to live simply and very well on our pension.

Your garden bounty sounds fantastic. Tasty. And healthy.

I wish we had the space and sun for a decent garden. We get lots of tomatoes and basil, but that's about it. This year we will try again at a full-spectrum garden.

The meat drought is over!

- In the most basic way. Broiled lamp chops, green beans blanched then sauteed in rendered lamb fat, roast potatoes.

But only briefly - thanks to the ''cookbook'' thread I have an awesome new ''Fish And Shellfish'' cookbook that I want to get nice and dirty. Dreaming of oysters.

- Broiled salmon filets w/ toasted almonds, maitake mushrooms and sauteed tomatoes. Didn't really work out, the tomatoes.

SWMBO started a liquid cleanse/diet. Ever the kind and supportive husband, I scoffed that whatever number of days she managed, I would do better. Hey, how hard could two days?

How reckless those words were!

She is about to complete her planned ten days, during which she has been feeling great, bouncing with energy, shedding pounds, etc. It is truly distressing to see.

I am now compelled to begin this regimen myself. SWMBO won't let me off the hook. She's Ming the Merciless and I'm a wriggling worm.

Goodbye Ice Cream Boy. Goodbye thick luscious caps of fat lamb, goodbye creamy spoonfuls of D'Affinois, goodbye carmelized sugar over rich fat, goodbye thick dark sauces, goodbye shiny butter melting over deep red beef with a glass of big Oregon pinot. For that matter, goodbye hard toast and dry crackers. Goodbye eating.

I guess I can get on the two-wheeler and ride around with my mouth open, maybe gulp a bug or something. Oh, wait, I wear a full-face.

If I lose it and post all bitter and delirious in the coming weeks, that's why.