Sugar and spice and everything nice

Anyone who's seen a marathon of Bang For Your Buck knows kitchen upgrades can drain your savings without any guaranteed payoff. I do not recommend the bizarre choice of a leather-topped kitchen island. What I do recommend, and what won't even empty your wallet: an in-drawer spice organizer. 

More expensive versions exists, but I don't think your cumin cares if it rests against mahogany or plastic. I found this expandable version on Amazon for about $15. Size does matter -- these come in sizes from a few inches wide to more than 20 (this one conveniently expands from 12" to 20"). Most hold jars help at an angle -- making labels easier to read, and leaving less chance of liquids dripping. 

Organizing this drawer made me realize I have fewer spices than I thought (which of course makes me want more), but they're all easier to find now. Previously, I had a mess of bottles and jars in a dark, vaguely crummy cupboard, with only the front few easily accessible -- it was like some dingy, back-alley spice party, incompatible strangers crammed together and god-knows-what going on in the dark corners of the room. If you're looking for a simple, instant-gratification update, save your spices from awkward mingling and opt for some in-drawer organization.

New Kitchens: Raven, part 1

When I considered it from the distance of our old apartment, setting up a new kitchen seemed like a fun opportunity to create an organized and efficient cooking and baking space. Everything would be properly placed around the room, perfectly within reach when needed and tucked away neatly when not. Nothing would be more perfect!

Recreating my vision was not so flawless. After a very long day packing and hauling and unpacking boxes, I spent half an hour contemplating the placement of our dishes in a cupboard. High or low? Left or right? Near the dishwasher or the dining room? Can bowls and plates mix on a shelf, or should they be segregated?

I unpacked our most frequently-used dishes and silverware first, and put them near the dishwasher for easy unloading. The highest cupboards went to the most seldom-used stuff. (Note: making your own pasta sounds fabulously rustic and gourmet, but in reality that classic Italian pasta machine will have a very lonely life.)

Brian left the kitchen project primarily in my hands, but helpfully wandered in at one point and suggested we use at least one cupboard for food -- you know, so we'd have something to fill our pots and plates with.

Our kitchen is now in use (and yes, sometimes we drink Riesling while blogging):

It's not quite perfect yet -- there's still a box of serving dishes in the guest bedroom, and the only cookbooks I have unpacked are Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (most useful cookbook I've ever found) and Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook, based on her TV show (and used for my first post on 2 Teaspoons). But we've had friends over, I've just begun preparing fabulous things in the kitchen, and it's starting to feel a bit less foreign and sterile, and a bit more like home.

One of the most satisfying kitchen-organization tricks I found: stuff everything away so the place looks clean, and then place a few favorite items neatly in the center of the room. Here, my unplanned collection of white ceramic pitchers and other containers (plus mixer) on our butcher-block cabinet -- seeing this definitely made the space feel mine: