Flavors 518

In the grand tradition of the haul videos on youtube , let me tell you what I got at the flea market yesterday. You remember when I went to the Brimfield Flea Market in July . Well, yesterday my coworkers and I went back. Check out what I got! This woman had a booth that was basically everything from my wedding - brooches, vintage hankies, gloves and awesome retro things. I saw this apron at that booth, and I had to get it. It is so awesome makes me think I should take an embroidery class at the Arts Center of the Capital Region since I always go so crazy for those types of items at flea markets. This awesome green kitchen stool was $20 from the 1920s. I figured I can peel potatoes, chop veggies, and hang out in the kitchen for hours all without my feet hurting. I'll probably touch up the paint, but I think it is adorable. I actually walked past it the first time and kept thinking about it (that is usually the sign you should head back and pick up the item). I got one ...

I have heard of cookbook addicts who have a problem - that is people who constantly buy cookbooks and never use them. These individuals seem to get fed up with themselves and say things like "I am going to cook my way through that entire cookbook all in subsequent days". Who have you ever known (besides Julie Powell) who has actually done that? My approach is more balanced. I don't buy a crazy amount of them, and what I do have I actually use. We keep them on a shelf in the dining room so we can never forget which ones we have. Also, sometimes if I have nothing to do for an evening I might browse through one I had never looked at very closely before. You can always revisit them, and some times we go through phases where we revisit cookbooks we've had for a long time. This browsing through them turns out to be useful when one random night you really wish you knew what to do with some leftover chicken, and you remember some interesting quesadilla recipe you read fr...

A long time ago I read about Julia Childs's kitchen organization ideas . She kept everything out in the open and quickly accessible.  I love this philosophy, and since I read about I have thought that having tools at the ready is just as important as having things already chopped up before one starts cooking. It is all part of the mise en place . I have followed this model in a few different ways. Utensils at the ready in canisters: Glasses on racks: Hooks for aprons and pot holders: And that leaves us with my project for today. One of my friends once said to me when we first got engaged not to put things on our wedding registry we didn't have space to store. Well, we have already received more gifts than we really have space to store. And sure there are some great options for dining room/kitchen storage (that cost a fortune) , and maybe one day we may even be able to afford one of these beautiful storage solutions. But in the meantime, I got a cheap bookshelf from Stap...