Around the Kitchen Table: Kitchen organization

I don’t know about you, but I have a particular spot for my mixing bowls, sifter, pots, pans and measuring cups. In fact, I have specific places for almost everything in my kitchen.

Unfortunately, the other people who live here don’t understand my system.

Growing up, Dad taught us “If you get something to use, you put it back in the same spot, in the same condition as you found it.” While we didn’t always adhere to his “rule,” it eventually became a habit to return items as he requested. This extended to other things around our farm – “If you go through a closed gate, close it behind you” or “Shut the door to the barn and the house” because leaving either open can cause big problems.

I guess that’s why I’m so picky about my kitchen cabinets. I have things arranged the way I need them for optimal efficiency. Being about two feet shorter than everyone in my household, this is what I need to enjoy the large amount of baking and cooking I do every week. Trying to explain my need for order and the added aggravation of lugging a heavy chair or ladder to retrieve bowls and cake pans to my tall people is mostly an exercise in frustration. I sometimes wonder if they think those yummy goodies just magically appear.

Some of the best cooks I’ve known have been “built low to the ground,” as Dad used to say: my mom, Ma (grandmother), several aunts and some of my friends. To operate within the realm of the vertically blessed requires extra patience, a dash of fortitude and a hefty helping of humor. Short people know this and we do our best.

There are advantages to being “less tall.” Tree dwellers don’t like to stoop down to dig around in the lower cabinets, so if I want to keep an ingredient or a certain pan or bowl out of sight, that is the perfect place to store it. Eye-level ingredients are free game according to some, and this principle extends to the refrigerator.

I was so happy when we went from a top freezer model to one with a bottom pull-out freezer. Now I can actually see what’s in there and can “hide” things in the lower regions of the bottom drawer. The tall ones won’t bother to lean down and dig (most of the time). I have lost a gallon or two of my favorite ice cream, but I’ve discovered that a bag of broccoli on top of the carton deters all but the most determined pilferers.

Back to the baking … Mama had a method to her pie-making that facilitated her almost constant success with crust. She kept her flour, salt and shortening all within reach and the pie plates in a neat stack nearby. Her favorite green Pyrex bowl was her crust-making bowl, one of a set of four she got back in the mid-1950s. Mama never used a pastry blender, just a long-tined fork and her hands. The results were always a melt-in-your-mouth tender flaky crust that few people could match. She said, “Most people overwork their crust and that makes it tough.” She was right.

I had to overcome the urge to keep mixing it beyond what was necessary. Making pie crust is definitely a learned skill – not difficult, but it requires practice.

Another note on kitchen organization and usefulness – I like a small kitchen. Not tiny, but one with plenty of counter space. I have friends that have kitchens so big it’s like running a marathon to prepare a meal. The sink and stove are so far apart you have to be a weightlifter to get a water-filled stockpot from here to there. Horrors if you forget something from the fridge – you have to trek back across the kitchen, dodging the island, get the item and get back before you forget what you are doing. One friend’s kitchen is so large I need a map to find my way around. I don’t think Julia Child needed that much room – and she was a tall person.

Maybe I just need to vent. I do have cookies to bake today … if someone hasn’t found my peanut butter in the lower cabinet. As I can reach my cookie sheets I should be good. After all, if life were perfect I wouldn’t appreciate things nearly as much – especially my little “sort of organized” kitchen.

Mama’s Pie Crust

For double 9” or 10” crust pie

3 cups sifted flour

1 heaping teaspoon salt

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons shortening

6 – 8 Tablespoons cold water

Combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening with fork until shortening is well-incorporated. Add 3 or 4 Tablespoons of water and work gently with hands to get dough to stick together. Keep adding water until all flour is mixed in and dough is holding together, but not sticky.

Press into two balls, one for the top crust and one for the bottom crust. Roll out on wax paper. Use immediately.

(Mama’s secrets: put ice cubes in water to get it cold fast, and according to the humidity, use more or less water.)

by Tamra M. Bolton