Our Kitchen

In our last post we talked about some of the great kitchen tools we used, today we’ve got a quick tour of our kitchen so far. I say so far, as the kitchen is in need of a major update and overhaul. As an aside, here’s a little background on the kitchen and house we have now. The house belonged to Charisse’s grandfather, Erv. Her dad Patrick grew up there before moving to Willow Glen a few miles away. Erv lived there for 57 years before moving into an in law unit Charisse’s parents built for him. We moved into the house and started renovating it, bit by bit. Its been about a year and we’ve finally gotten things somewhat settled. Now that doesn’t mean the house is done, but it is a long way from where it was when we moved in. Far enough along that were willing to post some pictures of it. Here's the Kitchen as it was when we moved in



This is where we have it now:

Some of the features we’ve focused on are the floors, pot rack dishwasher and refrigerator corner. When we moved in, a pot bellied stove had displaced the refrigerator (left), so that was project 1. No chef in their own house should have to get by without a dishwasher, though its too bad those weren’t standard in 1950, so I built that in, and a friend of ours helped build the cabinet. Lastly We got ourselves some new flooring for our first anniversary (aren’t we romantic?).
    After all that, we’ve hit a point where we’re basically happy with the way things are, a few more coats of paint and finishing touches (like a new stove) and we’ll be all set. Speaking of the stove, as you can see from this picture its at least a million years old. Butt that’s the benefit of cooking with gas, you don’t need to worry about any faulty coils or burnt out elements, as old as this stove is, it works just fine. One day we’ll get a new one, but until then, this will do.

 And that’s it, whenever you see something amazing here, you know where it was made!

Our Favorite Things

Charisse and I talked for a while about what to do this week since we won't be cooking until the weekend. We ended up deciding on doing an introduction and tour of our kitchen along with some of the tools we use on a day to day basis. So here's "about us" and a run down of some of our favorite kitchen tools!  Don't forget to visit The Written Geek for more about the photography side of the blog!

Charisse and I are both native to San Jose, California having grown up less than 10 miles apart. We met online on Match.com in 2006 and even though we had never met, we've been in the same places at the same times over the past 10 years. We even went to rival high schools. Charisse and I had both been interested in cooking and grilling, but it was not until after we moved into a tiny San Francisco studio and were married in 2008 that we really began to take cooking seriously. When we moved back to San Jose in 2009, cooking became an all around passion for both of us. We've reached a point where cooking has become art, and we're ready to share it with the world. Or at least the internet.

When we were brainstorming ideas for this post, we decided to showcase some of our kitchen essentials:

Now first and foremost, good tools does not a good chef make. In my experience cooking is 65% experience 20% ingredients and the rest is a good recipe. When your shopping for tools though, having good tools just makes life a little easier. This shot here is our selection of Shun Classic knives and wooden spoons, the tools that get used in every single meal. Not everyone needs a set knives that cost of $200 per knife, good quality knives can be found in just about any price range. Wooden spoons are cheap and having a large selection of different shapes and sizes will make putting a large meal together easier when your not constantly washing the same spoon over and over or having different ingredients mixing together in ways you don't intend.


A few other important elements in a good kitchen is the stove, oven and a few pots and pans. We've started switching our pans to a collection of cast iron and All-Clad Copper Core. Combined with a gas stove, these are excellent pots for just about any dish. When it comes to cast iron, you could go with the enameled Le Creuset pieces costing upwards of $100.00 or more, or you can go down to the local camping supply store and buy a plain black pan for 15 bucks. Either will work, we use both depending on availability. Maybe we'll do a blog later on just focusing on cast iron cooking. Either way, here's a look at our 8" All-Clad fry pan on the stove.