I think you will miss having some celery in there. What I do is this: Cook your chicken....do not over cook. You could grill it or fry or poach it. Then in a frypan cut up an onion ( I like the stronger flavor than the leek) and 2 stalks of celery, and a clove of garlic and gently fry in 4 T butter until soft, stir in 1/4 cup flour, cook a minute and slowly stir in 2 cups of chicken broth....simmer 5 minutes and stir constantly, add 2 cups of milk, and the cut up cooked chicken and simmer a few minutes, salt and pepper to taste and a handfull of chopped parsley. My cream of chicken soup contains no cream!! Linda C

Oh, this thread is great. Sorry khallock about the marital drama. Nothing like a reno to bring out the worst in both spouses. My DH and I remodeled after a house fire. We were under tremendous schedule pressure and are very different in how we process decisions. Plus he is color blind, not great at visualizing spaces and prefers to be a nay-sayer rather than idea proposer. Fun times! We also went round and round about the fridge. I really loved the columns and we desperately needed more freezer space than we could get in a standard 36". We agreed on a counterdepth appliance but struggled for a long time over what to buy. The budget was what finally killed the columns for us. We ended up with a 42" Thermador side-by-side, and we still grumble about the freezer size. My DH was the one who fell in love with the Wolf 36" cooktop and I just went with it. I don't regret it, but I didn't have strong opinions about it otherwise. The biggest conflict we had in the kitchen remodel was over the backsplash design. I chose a colorful tile early on and then played around with countless patterns. He was very firmly fixed on having a traditional, regular, repetitive pattern and I was not. I posted pics here and took a vote and the winner was a random pattern, which I liked best too. Other more experienced designers here helped me understand why it was more appealing and gave me some words to use to explain it to my DH. I insisted that we would have a random pattern, trying to explain why it made sense. He was very unhappy. I held my ground and the backsplash is awesome. Now, whenever we have guests, he takes them right into the kitchen and says "My wife designed this. Isn't it great?" Establish your shared vision for this kitchen. Make a mood board. Learn to use a 3D sketching software so you can play with different things like the fridge, etc. And accept the fact that sometimes you are just going to have to stand your ground.

minsue67: Does this mean you are going to pick up a 1 inch Dowel at Home Depot ? Hardware stores have them too. Teresa mn: I have a 27 inch Macaroni Board a 3/4 in., 1 in. & 1 1/4 inch by 30 inch Dowel for rolling the Dough. Any larger Diameter would not work as well. Here is a Photo of the board and Dowels. It can be moved anywhere it is convenient to work, if the kitchen is busy. I prefer the center, 1 inch Dowel, it is slightly larger than a Quarter. LOU It is very easy to roll the Dough out and stretch it as you roll. When the dough is rolled on the Dowel, you can roll it out anywhere you want. Like rolling a Pie Crust on a rolling pin, then over a Pie Tin.

When my husband and I were married, he worked two jobs until he became self employed. Then he worked 7 days a week for the most part and from 7 in the morning until sometimes 8 or 9 at night. By the time he came home he was too tired. Now since he had his stroke this past October, he is back to working 6 days a week but only from 8 to 5 most of the time. So, really there was never much time for him to be at home. All home duties, mowing, gardening and the children all 4 of them were pretty much left up to me to take care of. There was no other way we could have done it. Our son and all 3 of our sons in law do know how to cook and help out around the house. So at this late date I don't think anything is going to change. I have just about always been a stay at home mom. Sue