eG Foodblog: therese - So, you want to remodel your kitchen?

[TheFoodTutor]

Between the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai places you have started out with a lot of Asian food. Is that a preference or a coincidence? Are Asian cuisines particularly prominent in and around Atlanta? I wish good examples werre more readily available where I live.

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<Hoping therese will forgive me for responding in her absence> The Asian food available here is quite amazing, and it's a wonderful part of living here. Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese (though some Chinese restaurants here have variable quality), Malaysian and Japanese readily available, and even some Indonesian occasionally. Large Asian populations are scattered in various areas, both ITP and OTP, interspersed with a variety of Hispanic populations from Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela. . . just about anywhere. And then there is a large pocket of Indian restaurants, a single Bangladeshi restaurant, plus many markets for ingredients to make these cuisines. Outwards from the city, there are more European markets catering to Russian ex-pats and other enclaves of Czechs, Slovaks, some Hungarians and Polish immigrants. . . Great Persian and other Middle Eastern foods. . .

So, basically, lots of really great options if you like variety in your food. High-end European a little harder to find, no foie gras stands on every corner or anything like that. And probably the hardest thing to come by is really good Southern food in the city. She can tell you about that more than I can, definitely, and there are a few places that are very popular and/or serve authentic Southern dishes.

But you can pretty much find just about anything here, and there's more than enough to eat. Provided that you can sit in traffic long enough to get there, which is why some of us live intown.

Oh, but there's plenty of mediocre pap available, too. The trick is weeding that out.

[therese]

Finally back on line. Very limited web access most of yesterday. I could get to servers that I knew to be local (work and a few other sites), but otherwise pretty much nothing.

Much thanks to FoodTutor for posting to the thread in my stead last PM, and on with the show...

Between the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai places you have started out with a lot of Asian food. Is that a preference or a coincidence? Are Asian cuisines particularly prominent in and around Atlanta? I wish good examples werre more readily available where I live.

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Both. As FoodTutor notes, there's an enormous ethnic mix here, much of it first generation. It can be a bit intimidating if you're not of that ethnicity (English marginal, unfamiliar food items, etc.) but of course also very rewarding. We were the only non-Asian (and I'd guess only non-Korean, but I didn't go around and take a poll) guests at lunch on Saturday, ditto the Vietnamese bakery. The Thai place, on the other hand, is in my neighborhood, and the clientele mix there is much more varied, with lots of university students, faculty, etc.

We eat Asian pretty frequently because it's easy to get a great meal, it's inexpensive, and it's generally pretty healthy. I'm also specifically interested in exposing my kids to different sorts of foods, not just at restaurants but also at home. On a recent shopping trip to one of the really big pan-Asian/Hispanic markets here, Buford Highway Farmers Market, Boy wanted to know what sort of dish one would make with pork uteri (on display in shrink-wrapped foam trays in the meat section, right between pork testicles and pork tongues). I told him that I had no idea, but that it was probably pretty chewy.

[therese]

Lovely blog, Therese. For those of us not to familiar with Korean cuisine, perhaps you could describe the dishes you had and what they consist of?

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Heh heh. I would if I could. The hae-mool pajun and the broiled macker are as FoodTutor described them.

The assorted side dishes are all brought to the table without being ordered, and it just depends on what that restaurant has available that day. Some dishes more hot and spicy, some dishes more sour, some dishes more starchy. I usually recognize the base ingredient, but apart from that I don't have any particularly expectations for any particular item. Sometimes I don't even recognize the base ingredient---I've no idea what the strips of pale tan vegetable were, for instance. Some sort of root vegetable is as close as I'm willing to guess.

[therese]

When our present house came on the market we both fell in love with it, but knew that we'd eventually have to do some remodeling, as the bathrooms were original and the kitchen was truly scary (more about that later).

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So what was it, precisely, that made the original kitchen so scary?

I'd actually seen the kitchen at two different times, the first time in the early '90s, when the older couple who lived here for over 40 years (rearing six kids) put it on the market. This house is still known in the neighborhood as the "So and So House", and one of the original kids (who is now old enough to have grandkids of his own) lives a couple of blocks away and we see him and his family socially. Most of the other kids ended up in the area as well.

The kitchen had originally been built for servants to work in, and it was a small and dark space when I first saw it in the early '90s. Seems like the walls were institutional green back then. It was located on the very back of the house, but there was no view at all towards the back yard and the golf course. A deck had been added at some point, probably during the seventies.

The young couple that bought it that first time brightened things up by replacing the back wall with French doors (that opened out onto the deck) and painting everything cream. But the doors were single pane glass, and because the kitchen was located in a sort of shed annex it was very cold in the winter. Oh, and they didn't cook. At all. Lovely people, but they never cooked.

Specific issues with the kitchen when we bought the house:

1. Thoroughly worn out pale yellow flooring (over several other layers of thoroughly worn out flooring, fortunately no asbestos).

2. Thoroughly worn out pale yellow countertops.

3. Cabinets poorly constructed and poorly positioned. I can't even begin to describe how badly laid out it was. Take my word for it.

4. Refrigerator smaller than standard, with no freezer. Awkwardly positioned, door opened the wrong way. I'm pretty sure that, over time, this arrangement would eventually have driven me insane.

5. Electric range on which only the two back burners worked. Oven worked on "broil" setting only. Have you ever broiled Christmas cookies? We had an outdoor gas grill that I used almost every night, as otherwise we might have starved that first year.

6. Shallow double sinks, finish nearly worn through.

We hadn't yet figured out what to do with the rest of the house, but in the interest of my mental health we decided to do an emergency mini renovation after we'd been in the house about year.

We ripped up the floor (to reveal boards, which we painted dark green), painted the walls and hideous cabinets (which we didn't replace, figuring it would give us incentive to proceed with the final remodel down the road, which it did) white, replaced the counter top (there was only one, hah hah hah) with dark green laminate, replaced the sink, replaced the dishwasher and dispos-all, switched positions of the range and fridge and replaced them with a gas version of the former and larger version (with freezer, opening to the correct side) of the latter.

We added a small breakfast bar with stools and some shelves and a pot rack and in the end it was actually pretty cheerful and pretty efficient. But still too cold, and with such crappy storage that I refused to buy small kitchen appliances of any sort.

No digital pictures of either the scary version or the interim version of the kitchen, I'm afraid. I'll look around for one that I might be able to scan.

[therese]

So this blogging thing is both fun and educational. So far I’ve learned that if you commit yourself to a blog your internet service will go down. Boy howdy, am I ever testy.

Another thing I’ve learned is that if you try and take photographs of highly reflective surfaces while wearing your pajamas you will end up with a lot of photographs of yourself in pajamas.

So, on with the kitchen…

Having finally scraped together sufficient scratch to foot the bill for the remodel we started working with an architect whose work I’d seen in a couple of other houses in the neighborhood. She had great ideas, and was as interested in maintaining the period feel and architectural integrity of the house as we were. She was also cool about incorporating my ideas.

We took three bids from contractors, and ended up going with the lowest (by far) of the three. We’ve been happy with his work, happy with the fact that it was done on time, and happy with follow-up/touch up sorts of things that we’ve needed over the last year. Very detail-oriented, very concerned with getting trim “just so”, fine with working from non-detailed architectural plans (saving us the trouble and money of having the architect draw them up).

I hadn’t planned on using a decorator at first, but realized early on that every minute I spent agonizing over twenty bajillion different light fixtures was another minute I wasn’t agonizing about something important, like food. He ended up contributing more to the design of the house than I’d anticipated.

I didn’t end up working with a kitchen designer at all, in large part because I already had so much input from the rest of the team. I didn’t really need much in the way of ideas, as I’d been thinking about what I wanted in my kitchen for years, and the layout aspect of it was straightforward. Since I went with all custom cabinetry I could communicate directly with the cabinet maker and get exactly what I wanted---stock or semi-custom would have made this approach problematic, I think.

[therese]

Lunch today (or rather Sunday, when I wrote this entry) of cucumbers and tomatoes with feta, a clementine, and two Almondina sesame cookies:

[therese]

I’ve just realized that those sweets that were billed as being filled with bean paste are actually filled with chestnut (seems reasonable given that the pastry’s been made to look like a chestnut). Or if it’s not chestnut it sure tastes and feels a lot like chestnut.

[therese]

General stuff that I wanted in my kitchen:

1. Low maintenance, functional surfaces.

2. Relatively tight work area (range/sink/fridge) for a single, primary cook. Similarly tight loop for clean-up (table/sink/dishwasher/storage).

3. Cabinets and major appliances positioned so as to minimize stretch/reach and bend/reach motions, as well as repetitive bending.

4. Decor that respected the period of the house (though obviously this sort of kitchen wouldn't be even remotely consistent with the original period).

[therese]

Now I’m really really testy (by now it's late Sunday afternoon): I’ve been without reliable internet access now for most of the day, so am blogging blind. Oh well, I’ll just keep going.

The previous kitchen included a couple attached small rooms. The first was a butler’s pantry, really more of a hallway, and it’s through this hallway that visitors to the house first see the kitchen. The arched doorway is original, and is repeated in three other wide arched doorways that lead off the foyer (which is behind me as I take this photo):

What we did with this space was turn it into a mud room, where everybody deposits their coats and scarves and briefcases and backpacks and sports equipment and shoes before entering the remainder of the house. A bit of a mess (I’ve used a flash here to illustrate the mess in all its glory), but at least it’s contained.

A boot bench runs the length of the room, with space underneath for shoes (the idea being that the children will put their shoes under the bench, something that’s apparently a lot harder than it sounds), and drawers for storing gloves and caps and hair brushes and lint removers. Hooks line the wall for coats and hats. As this floor is inevitable likely to get the dirtiest quickest, we decided to just go ahead and make it out of mud. Or bricks, to be precise.

The arched doorway here (through which you can see into the kitchen proper) is new. We added it to match the original, and barreled the ceiling over it.

Here’s a better picture of the barreled ceiling (with a burned out lightbulb):

[therese]

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.

The flowers were from The Man and Boy and Girl. They arranged them in the vase last evening while I was getting dressed to go out for dinner. Apparently they'd been purchased at some point on Saturday afternoon, and so had been hidden away somewhere (probably my husband's office upstairs) in anticipation of the perfect moment.

The chrome coffee service next to it on the sideboard (we're in the breakfast room of the kitchen, by the way) belonged to The Man's mother (now deceased). Probably dates from the mid '30s, and was used routintely back when The Man was just a wee thing. Pretty, of sentimental value, and not too far off period.

Breakfast today, in two stages.

Before:

After:

I think we can all agree that we don't need to see any more pictures of cooked oatmeal in this blog.

[therese]

Lunch today:

The sinister-looking stuff in the upper right hand corner is sauteed eggplant and onion. I'd gotten some Japanese eggplant to make a recipe that Vietamese friend/restaurant owner had shared with me (served at his restaurant, but the restaurant's a bit of a trek for us) but didn't manage to make it, so I'm using it for lunch.

We get small Granny Smith apples because my daughter prefers them. The plastic-wrapped white things underneath the fruit are Sargento low fat string cheese. The best string cheese product I've found, and very convenient for lunches.

This jar contains probably the single strangest food item in my kitchen:

Who can tell me what it is?

[GordonCooks]

Lunch today:

The sinister-looking stuff in the upper right hand corner is sauteed eggplant and onion. I'd gotten some Japanese eggplant to make a recipe that Vietamese friend/restaurant owner had shared with me (served at his restaurant, but the restaurant's a bit of a trek for us) but didn't manage to make it, so I'm using it for lunch.

We get small Granny Smith apples because my daughter prefers them. The plastic-wrapped white things underneath the fruit are Sargento low fat string cheese. The best string cheese product I've found, and very convenient for lunches.

This jar contains probably the single strangest food item in my kitchen:

Who can tell me what it is?

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black sesame seeds?

[therese]

This jar contains probably the single strangest food item in my kitchen:

Who can tell me what it is?

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black sesame seeds?

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Nope. I've got way weirder stuff in my kitchen than black sesame seeds.

The jar distorts them a bit. Here's a close-up:

[docsconz]

They do appear to be seeds of some sort...or insect larvae

The availability of all those ethnic products is enviable. I live in an area that has some very good food, just not terribly diverse ethnically.

[therese]

They do appear to be seeds of some sort...or insect larvae

The availability of all those ethnic products is enviable. I live in an area that has some very good food, just not terribly diverse ethnically.

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Yep, definitely seeds. I don't think I have any larvae in the house right now. But I bet I could go buy some today if I wanted to.

A hint's probably in order...

I bought this item at an Indian grocery store near my house called Cherian's. Buying it required some help, as the Indian grocery store has about 200 different sorts of tiny black seeds for sale. The floor staff in the shop is not only almost entirely Hispanic, but also largely non-anglophone, and the item in question is not (so far as I know) consumed anywhere in Latin America. So I finally managed to track down a manager sort, an older woman in a sari, who was able to identify the item based on my description.

So somebody from the India forum might recognize it immediately. Or not.

[jackal10]

Black onion seed, Nigella, kalonji, nigella sativa

http://forums.egullet.com/lofiversion/index.php/t52157.html

Edited February 14, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[therese]

Black onion seed,  Nigella, kalonji, nigella sativa

http://forums.egullet.com/lofiversion/index.php/t52157.html

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No, but certainly one of the bajillion different sorts of black seeds sold at Cherian's.

This item can also be found in Asian groceries, typically as a component of a prepared product (ready for immediate consumption) manufactured in southeast Asia. I've not seen it in the seed form in an Asian grocery in this area, but that's probably because I haven't looked hard enough (the Asian groceries are a bit more of a trek).

These seeds are very tiny, about a millimeter in length.

[TheFoodTutor]

See, now therese and I are a lot alike, but I've got to admit, if that were my lunch, I'd say, "OK, but where's the goddamned food?" There's no way I could get through my day on that.

Maybe I should start sneaking food over to her office.

I think I know what the seeds are, as I've got some in my fridge right now, in a can with some sterchlia (a murky looking fruit) added.

But I won't tell if you don't want me to.

Edited February 14, 2005 by TheFoodTutor (log)

[therese]

Oh, yeah, TheFoodTutor isn't allowed to guess. Because she already knows what it is.

Edited to add: And no hints, either.

Edited February 14, 2005 by therese (log)

[Susan in FL]

Jackal10 didn't get it right?

Welcome back, Therese.

[Dianne]

My guess is anaradana (dried pomagranate "seeds")

Dianne.

[therese]

Jackal10 didn't get it right?

Welcome back, Therese. 

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Happy to be back.

And nope, jackal10 didn't get it right, and neither did Dianne: not anaradna.

These seeds are really tiny, about a millimeter in length. For those of us who don't use metric in our daily lives, you could put 25 of these little guys end to end and they'd only measure one inch.

They are seeds, and if I were to plant one of them I'd end up with a plant that's actually quite common in western cooking. Most people would associate the plant with Italian food.

[slbunge]

Parsley seed?

[Liz Johnson]

Fennel?

[fou de Bassan]

Tiny black mustard?