I’ve mentioned my New York City apartment a couple times on the blog – check this and this. So I thought it would be fun to elaborate and share with you all the place where the baking magic happens!
Let me start by saying that I’m very happy to be living in NYC. I had my heart set on moving here since age 14 and, after two and a half years, I’m still loving it. The city is full of neighborhoods to explore, restaurants to discover and experiences to be had. But I’ll be the first to admit that you make some sacrifices in your living situation to enjoy all that good stuff – unless you’ve got money to spend or have an MTV reality show paying your rent.
I’ll explain…
SIZE
My apartment is tiny quaint. Its small size makes for a cozy feel – which I LOVE – but doesn’t leave much space for baking and baking stuff. I’ve accumulated lots of ingredients and supplies over the past few months and my kitchen cabinets just do not support me in this endeavor. So when they started groaning under the weight of whole wheat pastry flour and saying things like we cannot fit any more of your unrefined sweeteners and grain sweetened chocolate chips!, I did the only thing I could. I moved it to the bedroom.
Indeed, that is Sucanat in front of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And molasses over by my crossword puzzle book. But my personal favorite…
…would be the pair of cookie sheets sitting in my Basket of Random Stuff. Right behind my fuzzy black monster slippers. Their shape is utterly incompatible with my kitchen cabinets, so this was their next best home. Obviously. Don’t worry – I wash before using!
One more thing on space before we move on:
See how much room there is between the oven and the wall – er, trash can? Not a lot. More than a couple of baking accidents have resulted from me trying to maneuver my goods in and out of the heat. Or from reaching in to poke my pumpkin bread with a toothpick and test for doneness. That door is HOT and snaps back like nobody’s business! Yes, I have battle scars and I wear them proudly.
OVEN
Speaking of ovens…let’s talk about even temperature…and how my oven doesn’t believe in such a thing. The back is WAY hotter than the front and is terribly mean to anything that encroaches on its territory. You want to bake back here? Silly muffins. I’m going to burn you now.
To deal with my oven’s attitude problem, I only place goodies-to-be in its frontal area. So cookie sheets are always half full – six at a time, max – and anything on longer trays that has no choice but to cross the invisible boundary line gets rotated in the middle of baking.
I cannot wait to have a nice oven one day. Dare I wish for a convection oven?! Ahh…it will be glorious.
FREEZER
I don’t have one of these. But that’s crazy! Everyone has a freezer! That’s what I thought too. Until I moved into my place and was introduced to Mr. Mini-Fridge. He’s not just for dorm rooms anymore!
That little ice cap at the top is supposed to be the “freezer” part of the refrigerator. Except it doesn’t actually keep things frozen. And it can’t fit anything more than a bag of peas between its frosted walls. I don’t even eat peas.
The challenge with loving to bake and not having a freezer is that I have nothing to do with excess treats. Unless I want to eat them all in a matter of days. Which may or may not happen from time to time. When I do get a freezer, it’s going to be brimming with baked leftovers. I can already imagine the awesomeness.
So that’s my home! It also has quite lovely characteristics that I didn’t bring up – like a strip of exposed brick and warm, colorful walls. I like to think of it as charming and quirky. Maybe a little like me? Ahh, who am I kidding. My apartment is way cooler than I am.
What’s your home like? Is it built for baking fun?