11.06.2004

Reorganizing the Kitchen

With the prospect of a 10 day hospital stay, I decided to reorganize the kitchen so the kids can cook (with Papa's help). I no longer have two year olds who like to use the rice bin as their own personal sandbox substitute, so that item has been taken down from the top of the kitchen "sideboard" cabinet and placed neatly in the lower left of the same cabinet next to bottles of soy sauce, cooking sakes (sweet and dry) and steepable bags of barley tea. It all fits like the cabinet was designed for this use, although S used to use it as his bookcase when he was a student.

The refrigerator and freezer have been emptied in one big surprise 20 course (or so) dinner. The kids enjoyed so many different morsels in one meal and I was able to re-stock with a few microwaveable dinner type foods and ziplock bags of sauteed meat and onions as a curry starter for chef J (who is excited about cooking, so far, and was glad to saute while I chopped, chopped and chopped). We even got a soup stock frozen for J to heat and add the parboiled and chopped Chinese spinach-like greens I froze and taped to the soup stock package and a beaten egg or two to go with the mini steamed meat-filled buns that L loves. She can steam the buns right over the soup before adding the greens and egg thanks to the AllClad pot Mom and Dad carried halfway around the world last time they visited. The freezer looks like one of the store display refrigerators with all the packages so neatly lined up on every shelf.

All the pots and pans, mixing bowls and colanders the kids may need have been stacked on the middle shelf of the plastic kitchen cart where they can be reached easily by people who are shorter than I am (everyone in this family, at this time...). Dried ingredients for foods they can make are lined up in the lower cabinet under the rice cooker with some other instant miso soup and corn soup packets and J has been practicing cooking the rice and making the barley tea.

The kitchen looks so clean it's a shame to use it. I wonder if we can order out for a week or so until I go in to the hospital...sushi, soba or udon noodles, pizza, Korean BBQ fried rice, ramen...oh the possibilities.

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