The Kitchen

I finished setting up the kitchen a few weeks ago. It just needed a roman shade to help cut down on the glare and heat of the afternoon sun. The venetian blind couldn't handle this task alone, which gives you a sense of how intense the western sun is in my high rise location.

The graphic black and white awning stripe fabric is from Ikea. I had the folks at Strosnider's cut down a 2" pine mounting board for me. I still had plenty of nylon cord, screw eyes and Velcro leftover from roman shade projects in both of our houses.

The starting point was a black and white palette. Details include an Italian cookie tin as a utensil holder, a tomato can as a spoon rest, and chalkboard paint on my grandfather's jelly cabinet. I've finished it off with several photos of and artwork by my kids, and a still life watercolor that I made many years ago.

Unadorned

Last Sunday was the last day. We cleared out the final belongings, bits of trash and swept up. In the late afternoon, I had one last opportunity to record the rooms on the first floor; the ones where we entertained, ate, read, and worked. We did nearly everything ourselves, from the design to construction, painting and decorating. I think it all turned out pretty well. To see the rooms unfurnished was bittersweet, but it did allow me to appreciate them in their entirety. 

The flow from room to room worked well from the beginning. We never changed the basic floor plan, except for removing one exterior door from the kitchen (where the stove now stands). The beauty and utility were already there. We just enhanced them.

These are the first photos I've managed to publish of the kitchen. I'm especially happy with the way this room worked out. I spent three years thinking about the design of this room, which we gutted and renovated in 2003. We did the sunroom at the same time. The beadboard wainscoting flowed from the entry foyer to the kitchen and into the dining room. We also continued the beadboard from the entry up the stairs and to the second floor landing. This feature united all the fairly small rooms and gave a certain visual logic to the whole. And I think we succeeded in making the rooms feel more spacious as a result. I'll miss that stove.

The sunroom is where I spent many hours looking over the back garden. This year, my oakleaf hydrangea finally filled out and achieved some kind of flowering glory. The dappled shade highlighted the many hedges of holly and boxwood, and played across the beds of perennials. In our final spring here on Shepherd Street, I finally settled the selection and position of flowering plants.

A tiny selection of plants from my back garden now sits on my new balcony, still struggling from being uprooted and trying to adjust to the new climate. 

Much like me.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas - on Labor Day

So, here we were, the first weekend in September, empty nesters for the first time. We had the whole weekend before us, and what did we do?

How about canning 50 pounds of peaches?

Well, many years ago we had our tomato sauce summer, when the kids were very young. We also had our Chocolate Fruit Cake Christmas when we were first married. So mass quantities of preserved food, for us, is kind of romantic, not to mention nostalgic.

OK, so we ate a few peaches out of the box, made a peach pie, and also four jars of peach chutney. But still, here we were with two crates of peaches, one from New Jersey and one from Venezuela.

It all started with a New York Times Magazine article on canning brandied peaches last month. Why, we thought, wouldn't this make a fantastic Christmas gift idea? Lots of ripe peaches, first rate brandy, and snappy jars! What could be better?

Figuring out the assemblage of pots on our four burners was the trickiest part. It involved closely choreographed kitchen ballet, moving the pots and pans back and forth as each step was completed.

(Also, I burned a finger halfway through the evening and had to keep ice on it the rest of the time. Remember that when you're enjoying your peaches, if you are a lucky recipient this Christmas.)

The entire kitchen smelled great, and became very, very sticky. I am still finding sugar on the cabinet door handles. Also, I think we went through 18 dish towels.

The hinged lid Italian jars (above and below) are very attractive, but they're very awkward to use. The two-part Leifheit jars were almost as attractive, and much easier to fit in the big stock pot.

The first night we canned the crate of white peaches. By the end of the evening, we were getting pretty fast!

Just for the record, the brandy was quite good.

Four hours later, and only one crate processed. So we saved the yellow peaches for Tuesday night (besides, they weren't quite ripe yet).

In the end, I am happy to report that we also had to use my extensive collection of Bonne Maman jelly jars, lovingly collected for many years. I knew they would come in handy one day! (That single purple jar lid was, I think, from a jar of boysenberry jam from last summer. Probably some kind of seasonal, limited edition thing.) All told, we preserved 46 jars of brandied peaches and four jars of chutney!

Of course, we just had to try a jar ourselves.