Kitchen's Kitchen

Japanese Centre

fav place everrr

Restraint of Beasts is great - thoroughly recommend bumping that up and giving it a read! Very short too, if memory serves.

I used to print them out at work and stick them in a notebook - not anymore since being at home. Also do the same with the Waitrose mag/paper which usually has nice recipes and means I can easily annotate. Could probably do the same thing with and iPad these days I suppose.

Sounds like you need Mrs Beeton.

For English cakes and puddings I would also recommend the original 1977 version of Delia's Cake book

Any idea if the 80's ones are ok? The OG ed seems pretty pricey now. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELIA-SMITHS-BOOK-OF-CAKES-by-DELIA-SMITH-H-B-D-W-1977-3-25-UK-POST/203252875700?hash=item2f52d0c1b4:g:No0AAOSwHYpgBvyw

Worth it for that cover :)
It looks like it was only revised a few years ago, so I would think an 80s version would be fine.

I would also mention Elizabeth David, although I find myself rarely reaching for her books for some reason

Cheers.

The colour is nice. The cabinet colour that is, the Dulux Heritage Sage Green.

I was unsure about the worktop initially, and concerned that I'd made a mistake keeping the appliances as freestanding rather than integrated... but the colour is good, and it all works.

The cabinets will be finished tomorrow lunchtime, and then the remaining pieces of woodwork like the skirting boards are painted early next week by another painter.

Day 21 of works

There has been 4 days of painting cabinets, three coats that now have to cure and harden over the next 2 weeks.

Almost there... final things are the woodwork painting, things like window frames, skirting boards, etc.

I like the worktop so much more now the cabinets are done. The room is light, earthy, and really relaxing to be in... this is exactly what I wanted to achieve.

6 Attachments

Gorgeous, much envy. Great to hear it's what you wanted to achieve and are happy

The worktop is really something.

With something bold like that worktop you really have to hold your nerve - now with the cabinet colour and the matching accents in the handles it looks even better.

Just noticed the Stagg pouring kettle....nice!

The colour is perfect.

Lovely, I can imagine Jeeves and Wooster hanging out in there...

1 Attachment

Fascinating thread.
UK construction is very different from Canada where I live.
Do you use hot water on demand heaters everywhere? I have a big tank in my basement for the whole house.
Laundry in the kitchen is a good idea. One unit that does both wash and dry? We usually put a separate washer and dryer in the basement or in a passage from garage to house.

It's all about space and age of housing stock. Most of our places pre-date mass availability of washing machines.

Bigger houses, or ones with enough dead space somewhere will often have hot water tanks, but even so where space is at a premium people will sacrifice it.

For eg my folks have two medium size ones - one in an airing cupboard under the stairs in the basement next to the kitchen, the other next to it in an adjacent coal cellar. But in their road most people typically have knocked out that airing cupboard to make the room bigger and probably extend a bit combining the coal cellar. When they had their house renovated the builders and PM thought my mum was a bit odd for prioritising an airing cupboard and outside storage over having a bigger kitchen. Would have also cost more, so they weren't the most objective, but still shows the trend.

What do you do in apartments? Is it like the States where nicer blocks have a communal set in the basement and less nice ones you go to a laundrette? Fucking hated having to spend $5 to wash anything regardless of size.

but even so where space is at a premium people will sacrifice it.

Which is the wrong thing to do, if, say, you enjoy washing your hands in warm water rather than cold, as it's such a fucking ballache waiting for the combi in the kitchen to clear the pints of cold water sat in the pipes in the huge run up to the bathroom upstairs.

@davidual this country has a weird fetish for combination boilers that supply heat and hot on demand. They are fine for small places with good water pressure but inadequate for a home with more than one bathroom, or even a small home with poor water pressure. The fitters LOVE fitting them though*, and we are conned in to thinking they are the most efficient, and home owners naively expect fitters to do the right thing, so they proliferate.

* especially in a place where you are guaranteed to get a massive pipe run, i.e. outside wall of downstairs kitchen or utility room because no fitter will now contemplate doing a vertical flue when the easy money is in fobbing off another naive home owner in to having some monstrosity in their garage.

Also, having a dryer isn’t considered a necessity - i think more people have them these days but still plenty don’t. The climate means you can just about get away with drying clothes outside late spring - autumn. For the winters people without - dry clothes on airers (hanging and standing) near radiators or wherever is least obtrusive).

Larger Victorian housing stock (and older) might have space for what we call a ‘utility room’ for laundry/boilers etc historically might have been the pantry / coal store etc . The 1930s and invention / expansion of the metropolitan train/tube lines out of cities towards countryside gave rise to the ‘suburbs’ as we know them now. Swathes of pattern book- 3 bed houses in pairs or quartets (semi detached ) typically approx 50m2 footprints with small garden front and larger at rear. Separated by alleyways of approx 2m. These were built before boilers / central heating was the norm - so these systems are typically retro fitted with a boiler in the kitchen and tank in the loft. Boiler tech was more widely available come the 60s I think. And later (90s. ? ) combi boilers replaced the old fashioned ‘inefficient’ idea of having a big tank of hot water in the loft that would run out (because at this point people are no longer having one bath shared between the family per day but using power showers.

i think more people have them these days but still plenty don’t.

IME there is a strong correlation between children and tumble dryers.

Growing up everyone seemed to have a dryer. Then when I was renting and people were getting their first flats no one had one - "why would you? Just hang it up. They're so bad for the environment." So I just assumed they were some sort of 80s hangover.

Now everyone has one again. Because fuck making your place mouldy and damp in winter, unable to do anymore washing because you've run out of hanging space.

We did not have the space for a tumble drier or dishwasher in our last place. We lived there until mini_com was 18 months, so probably some of the more washing heavy months of her life. I wouldn't say it was a struggle without a drier in a well ventilated flat with decent central heating and a dehumidifier, but I'm glad we've got one now.

^ same. Also same that we have a dryer now - but we don't seem to use it.

I went for a washing machine only, no drying capability.

I prefer this. It has a larger wash load, seems to have a more superior spin and rinse than anything I've ever owned.

But then, I have the benefit of a long bannister in the hallway and can drape a King size sheet or duvet cover the length of it and it will dry within 12 hours and without a single crease.

If I had nowhere to dry the bed linen I would've more seriously considered a drier.

As for the boiler... yup I went for a combi. This was dictated primarily by space constraints (converted Victorian house, I have loft space but wish to extend into there in future) and the boiler location means the runs to the kitchen sink and bathroom are short... the water is almost instantly hot.

What I had hoped for is an electric boiler capable of hot water and heating. I wanted to get rid of fossil fuels in the house. I've done that with cooking... but unless I was going to rip out the radiators I still needed a central boiler to provide that hot water. And without the space for a tank until a loft conversion happens I was still space constrained. Gas fuelled combi-boilers still significantly outperform electric systems for similar space constraints. I figure getting rid of the boiler is a 10-year plan and is probably linked to the loft being done.

Google Lens app and you can grab the text out of any magazine recipe and paste into a google doc directly

What gets me about Canada (and the US) is the size of the things! I assume the logic was that laundry was all done at once so you would have the drier running while the washer was doing the next load.

But the fact they put huge ones in two bed apartments, that are also top loaders so wreck your clothes...it totally baffles me.

I figure getting rid of the boiler is a 10-year plan and is probably linked to the loft being done.

You might find that by the time you get round to it there will be some kind of shared centralised hot water source delivered direct to your home.