Ye Olde Kitchen

This is my old apartment kitchen. This is where I did all of my cooking and attempts at baking for the last four years. 49 months if you want to be technical. I had a love/hate relationship with this kitchen.

There were things that I loved: I mean, really, for a (so-called) low-rent apartment, the kitchen was pretty huge. Another thing that I loved was that I had enough cupboards that I could keep most of my applicances off the counters. I also loved that I was allowed to paint my apartment. When I moved in the kitchen was plain old white. I wanted a tomato-meets-cranberry red, but couldn't find the exact color that I wanted so the awesome paint guy at Menard's worked on creating a custom color. I love this red. I love this red so much that when I moved out of the apartment I took the half gallon of paint with me and my new kitchen will be getting a makeover.

Things that I hated: The constant battle with the stove/oven. The burners never really lowered the temperature enough to simmer things, it was always more of low rolling boil or off. I was always in serious danger of burning things if I turned my back for a second. The oven was often temperamental - I often set the temperature 25 degrees less and for a little less time than directed. The fridge(s) were another horror story altogether. While I loved the cupboard space, the counter space was lacking when it came to serious baking projects.

All in all though, I had some good times in this kitchen. I had failures, I had successes, there were laughter and tears. There was even an episode of being severely jet-lagged, drinking an entire bottle of Jaeg and passing out at the table. Oh! And how could I forget trying to feed the pickiest German at this table? True story.