Sandy’s Kitchen Addiction

Before I moved last summer, I lived for more than a decade in a place with a tiny kitchen that I nonetheless managed to cram with tools and gadgets that I’d use a few times and forget. (Case in point: Yvonne recently returned a juicemaker I didn’t recall owning, let alone lending.)

It was a sickness that I ultimately controlled by writing so many books that I didn’t have time to troll kitchen stores.

Still, when I moved, I had 18 boxes marked “kitchen.” This is remarkable considering I never really cooked, and baked only sporadically.

Worse, I’d done a pretty major purge. In my college neighborhood, anything let by the curb disappeared in minutes. It mitigated my shame to know that the following nearly-new kitchen tools found good homes with needy students:

• Breadmaker
• Handmixer
• Espresso makers (3)
• Coffee pot
• Bodum coffee press
• Electric Grills (2! I was vegetarian – how much grilling did I anticipate?)
• Waffle maker
• Whisk, zester, cherry pitter, melon-baller and other assorted tools
• Baking pans of every shape and size

I unpacked boxes in my new, bigger kitchen, I was surprised at how little space I had left over. Yet, as I began to cook and entertain, I found there were gaping holes in my collection, including a few items I’d ditched!

An edited list of kitchen stuff I’ve acquired since the move:

• Whisk, meat thermometer potato masher, garlic press (oops – that makes 2!), cutting boards, and various other utensils
• Non-stick fry pan
• Roasting pan
• Ramekins (to make pannacotta for Yvonne)
• Nespresso coffee maker (love it so much I’ve proposed to it)
• Le Creuset pot (ditto)
• KitchenAid stand mixer (with ice cream maker attachment – completely unnecessary and so much fun!)

Amount of unused kitchen counter space: zero

Amount of unused cupboard space: zero.

Number of items I’m missing from a New York Times list of 10 essential kitchen tools: 7.

Specifically:
• chef’s knife
• large stock pot
• large cast-iron skillet
• paring knife
• solid wooden spoon
• microplane grater for citrus zest and hard cheeses
• quality kitchen scale

I suppose I should prioritize these over the food mill I’ve been craving, especially since I’ve liberated a rusty specimen from my mom’s basement and it still works.

I also borrowed mom’s immersion blender, and found it has enough power to lift my house off its foundations.

I really want one of my very own.

I believe that immersion blender would change my life.

And that, my friends, is a sickness.