I bought them on ethiopianspices.com and I love them. But I bought a lot, and had no place to keep them. So I got these bins!


Every time I look at the Mekelesha I always say to myself, "Mekaleka-high, Meka-hiney-ho." From now on you will do it too. Just wait.


This Koseret looks like a big bag of pot, but it's actually not. I don't smoke so I guess I don't really know. It just reminds me of what it probably looks like.


I store a lot of my kitchen appliances on the top of my cabinets. Honestly, I don't think I could have made this kitchen work without this space. I have a 3-dozen cupcake carrier, a woven injera basket (from my caterer at my wedding!), a pizza stone, another cupcake holder, alternate vitamix container, bamboo steamer baskets, crock pot, stock pot, ice cream maker, cake container, waffle iron, panini press, food processor, another cake container, vegetable spiralizer, and probably more stuff too.


This is all the counter space my lease gifted me to work with. Naturally, I filled it with a Keurig, and tons of bottles of oils, vinegars, wines, and usually a pile of dishes.


This is my stove. At least it's gas. All NYC apartments have gas, right? It just wouldn't be fair to have electric. Gas stoves heat up in like 2 seconds. Electric stoves take about 15 minutes, and ain't nobody got time f'dat. Also this is my new tea kettle I got from my aunt Karen as a wedding gift! It is yellow and I love it!


This is the view from my kitchen window. I can see planes fly over that building to LaGuardia airport. It's kind of cool.


This is my pantry. I swear I went through it right before I took the picture. I have a lot of stuff and not a lot of space. That's obvious. I bought a bunch of stuff for particular dishes and then forgot to make them, or made them and had a ton of stuff left over, or something to that effect. I also bought a lot of extracts at one point. Not sure why I bought all those extracts...


I have yet another cupcake tree here, on top of a cake-frosting turtable, on top of a serving platter, on top of my microwave. Next to that, I have my toaster oven, which dangles off the edge of the shelf a little. Now I just sound bitter.


My mom gave me this island when I moved in. It is perfect and I could not function without it. I keep my vitamix there, my fruit basket, my wooden spoons, all my most important gadgets, and other things there. There are cabinets underneath too!


I have already shown off this wall, I'll show it off again because I like it. My friend Kevin is a graphic artist and these are some very old examples of his work. Some of these are shows we went to that he made the flyers for, and some are just cool graphic art pieces. I love them and they make my kitchen colorful and fun.


This pan was gifted to me this summer, with the premature passing of my aunt. We found all sorts of things in her apartment, one of which was this double-dozen muffin pan that was my grandmother's. My grandmother loved baking and it's great to have something of hers in my kitchen. I used it a few times already to make some muffins and cupcakes. I like to make huge batches of things and store them in the freezer for a rainy day.




In the other side, I keep my very large collection of flours. I have just about every type of flour you can think of here, and then a few more you've probably ever heard of. I think I need to make some double-dozens of some gluten-free muffins to use it all up! Underneath that, I have my new yellow lasagna pan that my aunt Karen gave me to match my kettle! I love how big it is! I can't wait to make some casseroles in it. Casserole season is coming, you know. At least I heard it's coming. Hasn't come yet though... I'm ready for it.... Been ready since it left... I'm over summer. I miss my hats.


 This is my fruit basket! I like to keep it full of apples and oranges, and other veggies like tomatoes, onions and garlic. Peaches made some appearances recently. You know I went to the farmer's market yesterday and got 6 peaches to make a peach pie. The peaches weren't even close to ripe, but I got them anyway. Do you know how much they charged me once I got up there with the bag of peaches? Fifteen dollars. Goddamnit, New York City! You slay me! Anyway I paid for them, but couldn't stop thinking about what a rip off that was and walked away without the peaches! The girl chased after me, and shouted "Ma'am! Ma'am!" That's who I am now -- and old, cheap, ma'am. When I just told that story to you, you were picturing Elaine from Seinfeld, weren't you. I was. It's okay. I know it.


My fridge is pretty vegan, I won't lie. This is an unstaged mugshot, so no rearranging was done before this photograph was taken. You can see cashew milk, coconut water, vegan beers, pickles, carrot juice, 2 brita filters, farmer's market produce like cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, ears of corn, bell pepperes, a lonely tomato, broccoli, zucchini, spring mix, leftover wedding cake and a tupperware full of spaghetti. I'm only human. It's also proof that I've been too busy to cook.

So we moved with everything. Everything we could absolutely not part with. We threw away a fair amount, which was hard to believe when my friends all helped us lug it up our 3-floor walk-up. I live in my kitchen! What can I say? I bought a spiral shredder so I can spiralize vegetables. I want to keep it, because I am going to want to spiralize a zucchini in the very near future. I am not throwing that out. I probably would have thrown out the collection of cupcake stands and holders had I not just recently done a wedding where I needed them, plus more. sigh...
Anyways, we packed it all into my kitchen, somehow, with hardly an inch to spare.

Do you see that counter space? That's all I was given to work with. WTF. Also a burner on the stove had been broken for ions before I moved in and the super tried very hard to get out of fixing it.
"When are you honestly going to need all 4 burners at once?"
"Um. Tomorrow."


Thank GOD for space above the cabinets. This just wouldn't have worked without it. Up there, I have my spice grinder, apple peeler, cupcake tree, pizza stone, bamboo steamer, ice cream maker, panini press, waffle iron, spiralizer, vitamix and food processor and all it's attachments.


I had storage bins from apartments passed, and I really didn't know where to put them. I had them by the window while I was reorganizing and was at a total loss for where the dish drain was going to be. I have literally no place to put it. My parents offered to take the storage bins off my hands and I wanted to see them go, but really, I needed the space to put the dish drain on. Whatever. KZ-problems.






My favorite part of our new place is all our posters and other various things we've drilled to the wall. It makes this space our own. These posters are from my room I grew up in, my friend Kevin is a graphic designer and all of these are his work. They're also mostly all for shows we went to as kids. They rule.


I love my island. A godsend. Or more like a mymomsend. The first day I got my island I didn't leave my kitchen the entire day and made 600 things. I love it. Before it, I was a constant wreck thinking I could literally never make tortellini again, roll out pizza dough, make cinnamon rolls, even assemble lasagna. Now, the sky is the limit. Also I have a place to put my stand-mixer and all, well some at least, of the bags of various flours that were spilling onto my floor.



What a remarkably weird collection of items to hold to the fridge with animal-themed magnets.
It's small, and it's tight, but I'm learning to love it, the more great cakes I make in it. The amount of good times cranked out of a space always brings one's heart closer to it.