Where to start - how about my kitchen?
I don’t think I will bother with the traditional image of my fridge’s innards – it wouldn’t be very interesting anyways, mostly unlabelled containers and bags of whole milk (did I mention I have twins?) plus a dizzying array of condiments. It is also undersized and undercleaned; I think a new one is pretty high on our list of major appliance new purchases. We have a chest freezer in the basement, also not very photogenic. Having just looked, I can say that it has inside several small whole chickens, a pork shoulder, bags of wild blueberries we picked last August, some raspberries from our garden, a whole salmon, and possibly some popsicles. And some of those blue cold packs in various sizes – the ones you take in your cooler when going on a picnic. I am sure there’s more stuff down there that needs to be chiseled away from the icy freezer walls. Sometimes there is venison from friends who hunt or mackerel when they are running in our bay (I’ll talk about that later).
A couple of years ago I got really tired of misplacing dried goods like those small bags of spices or grains bought in the bulk food section. I built a shallow shelf unit for the kitchen wall and mounted it across from the stove out of direct sunlight. I like seeing what stuff I have to work with and when the supplies are dwindling. Now I just wish it was bigger.
Here’s a context shot:
That’s an old butcher’s block down below from pre-WWII Toronto. I intercepted it on its way to the landfill when a meat shop near Dundas and Jarvis Streets (my old neighborhood) was converting into a pizza joint. It’s a beast, maybe 250 lbs. On it sit various glass canisters of flour, oatmeal, white and brown sugars, lentils, rice, pasta, etc. There’s a big stone mortar & pestle and my home made curry wheel (I have a wood lathe in the shop). The copper pots are a 12-piece Ruffoni set from Italy – I would say they are probably my most prized kitchen items. Definitely a big weapon in the battery.
On the rack above from which the pots hang are a ricer, a microplane, a garlic press, some cat toys, and a few other gizmos.
Back to the kitchen. Here’s a closer shot of the pantry shelf contents:
Let’s see if I can still identify all that stuff. . .
Across the top shelf: an empty jar, wooden mortar & pestle, my wife’s raspberry jam, six Emile Henry ramekins, soldier beans, dried papaya chunks, raw pepitas (aka pumpkin seeds), a terra cotta garlic roaster (not visible).
Next shelf down: kasha (aka toasted buckwheat), finely powdered black pepper, orzo, quinoa, a shaker of white flour, flax seeds, shredded coconut, white beans, split peas, prunes, apricots.
Middle shelf: two empty stainless steel shakers, empty glass shaker, whole coriander, 12 grain cereal mixture, sesame seeds, galangal, lime leaves, figs, my secret curry powder, millet, an ulu knife (a crescent-shaped Inuit tool for scraping pelts and cutting blubber, I use it on pizza).
Next shelf down: mild curry powder, powdered nutmeg, powdered garlic, hazelnuts, wild rice, turmeric, whole allspice, more black pepper, red lentils, salt & pepper mills (from England, with the thumb plunger), powdered cinnamon.
Bottom shelf: whole cloves, saffron (the safflower kind), peanuts, more cloves, whole nutmeg, scotch oatmeal (aka steel-cut pinhead oatmeal), slivered almonds, caraway, red pepper flakes, ground ginger, and a small black case with my darts (every other Friday is darts night)
Wow, that was fun. I only had to open one jar for olfactory verification – some of those brown powders really look alike. I should really use more labels. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
That object hanging on the right side of the shelves is a giant iron ladle. It tends to collect car keys and loose change. I have a thing for over-sized kitchen equipment; it’s a borderline Claes Oldenburg fetish, really. He’s that Swedish (?) sculptor famous for crazy stuff like the 50 foot spoon and bus-sized jackknife. It is inherently amusing to me when a familiar object is absurdly large, I cannot explain it. Maybe that’s a whole new thread I should start, if someone hasn’t already! What I really want is one of those giant six-foot pepper grinders that requires a team of two waiters to operate. Incidentally, have you seen Iron Chef Bobby Flay’s enormous submersible blender? Now there’s a mixer.
The white thing on top of the shelves near the ceiling is a lamb’s skull. Years ago my father-in-law imported hundreds of sheep from Scotland to Cape Breton in northern Nova Scotia. I think that skull belonged to one of the descendants. Initially they made a good go of it but it was the (non-native and highly invasive) coyotes who won out in the end. There still seems to be quite a few local lamb producers in this province although I am not sure where they all are. I can attest to the high quality of the lamb though; it is as good as any I have ever tasted. Maybe I’ll get some over the next few days; we usually do some kind of lamb dish every other week or so. Yum . . . how about shanks in the tajine, or maybe a curry?
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