The Tools Of My Trade originally published on Food and Fond Memories on December 20, 2012 by sandyaxelrod Leave a Comment (Edit)
The Tools Of My Trade
Welcome to Our Kitchen
For just over three years now you have been seeing a small part of my kitchen in my header with a cobalt blue Kobalt tool chest center stage. Several readers have asked me to tell them a little more about it so here it is. In the process of renovating our home I knew I wanted a rather commercial looking kitchen. At the time I spent more hours in our catering commissary than at home. But since I felt quite at home there though I spent little time actually cooking I wanted my home kitchen to have that same feeling for me.
My Mosaic “Salana Iune Iasis”
Now you have to understand that our house was a real fixer upper. It was in terrible condition when we first looked at it. But it was in the neighborhood that we wanted to live in. I hated everything about it and thought I could never live there until Steve said “Look at what fun we will have fixing it up!”. And then I had to have that house. It took us the first ten years of the fifteen that we have lived here to fix it up. It is the first home that I felt compelled to let the artist in me take over. We just did what made us happy. And we did the work in phases with the final one being the kitchen.
I used wire rack Metro shelving for my open pantry just like in our catering kitchen. I have all KitchenAid stainless steel appliances. For fun our upper cabinets are aqua with whimsical moulding. Our lower cabinets are stainless on the outside with red laminate inside and gorgeous light maple slide out shelves. Our counters are Black Galaxy granite which is rich shiny jet black with copper flecks scattered everywhere. And my sink is a huge single bowl commercial looking one that is extra deep and it’s fabulous. As a piece of art I designed a mosaic for the center of the kitchen floor.
My Fabulous John Boos Butcher Block
So back to the pantry area – I have a corner wall of built-in book shelves to house my enormous and still growing cookbook collection. A stationary “speed” rack that Steve painted red was added recently because of my baking company Alice b Tookus Baking Company (shameless plug). My tool chest and butcher block are in the center of this area. The butcher block was the last piece of the renovation puzzle. I have always wanted one of those heavy wood free standing blocks. I did some research on John Boos blocks and found out they are quite pricey so I figured I would never actually own one. Then just as we were finishing the kitchen Steve handed me a computer print out of the butcher block that I coveted. What’s this?, I asked. And my darling husband replied “the finishing touch”! Yeah, he’s a keeper.
My Kobalt Tool Chest
Top Drawer of my Tool Chest is Filled with my Knives
Second Drawer Filled with Cookie Cutters and Other Baking Tools
All Sorts of Tools in the Fourth Drawer
Last Drawer Holds Kitchen Towels, Cloth Napkins and Placemats
So now, ta da, for the tool chest. There were not a whole lot of drawers in the kitchen and I needed more. I had seen an ad in a magazine for appliances. In the ad the kitchen was in a garage that was complete with a car and a mechanics tool chest. I thought it would be a cool and novel idea to use a tool chest for the tools of my trade. And it has worked out quite well indeed. The top drawer holds my gorgeous knives lovingly cradled in cushiony foam. All of the drawers glide effortlessly on ball bearings. And the very bottom is a cabinet where I can hide stuff quickly when company is coming. On top I store my collection of oils and vinegars and on the side some assorted magnets from our travels. And that’s, as they say, the rest of the story.
