The Kitchen Meme

This meme was created by Cenzina, from Rome Italy. In her blog il cavoletto di Bruxelles, you can read about what gave her the idea of creating this meme.

She says: "So, as I was saying in the Italian version , it's raining, it's cold, so why not have a little fun: five questions about your kitchen, a place where you're presumed to spend quite a bit of time..."

For this meme, I have been tagged by Elvira, from Tasca da Elvira, a wonderful blog chockfull of delicious Portuguese recipes.

1) Show us your kitchen (a picture) and tell us what is it about this place that reflects your own personality.

This is a picture of my kitchen, the only place in my house that is more or less renovated. There are final touches missing, and the floor will be redone(I'm thinking in linoleum), but basically this is it. Probably this Winter I'm also planning to enroll in those ceramic making places that let you purchase prepared objects, you paint with ceramic paints and then they fire them. I'm planning to make copies of 17th century Portuguese tiles to put in the backsplash. Colours are blue and yellow. You can see here and here some tile arrangements that I am considering. This picture of the kitchen was taken yesterday night and I was making Marlborough Pie, which will show up in this blog sometime later. Here is another view, seen from the dining room. Notice that I have not yet started plastering the sheetrock joints in the dining room. How does this kitchen reflect me? Well, I like things close at hand so my counters will always have stuff in there, even if I know that everything in its proper place would look much better.

2) Open a cupboard (the one you feel to open), take a picture and tell us what we see.

I do not have a cupboard yet, so I can only show the pantry. What's inside, are everyday staples: flour, sugar, cereal, baking chocolate, canned tuna and salmon, sardines, tissue paper, you name it. I also have an old-fashioned oak kitchen cupboard with marble top. It is presently in the dining room and I keep some of my serving dishes there. On top of the marble top there is another marble stone, which I use when making and kneading bread. In my old house this marble stone was always available since my kitchen was bigger. Here, I know that one day it will be stored in the kitchen but right now is has plants on top. Sigh!

3) Present us your favorite kitchen-based electric tool.
The electric kitchen gadget that I use the most is probably the hand blender. I also have a countertop blender, but the idea that I have to wash it after use makes me choose the hand blender 80% of the time. Same with other tools. I have a Sunbeam mixer but I end up using my handmixer most of the times. Another gadget I really like is my kitchen scale. It measures both pounds and kilos and I would be lost without it.

4) Take out the ingredients you like the most, the ones you always keep stored.
These would be Portuguese sardines in olive oil, organic whole wheat bread flour, dried chickpeas, canned tuna and salmon in water, and Nestlé Rich Blend Instant coffee. There might be others, but these I always have.

5) My little steel friend: present us to your favorite cooking/baking recipient.

My pans are my favourite baking recipients. You have all seen the foods I bake in them. The loaf pan is steel but unfortunately the ring pan is aluminum. If I ever find one like that in steel I will purchase it.

And I tag Lyn, from LexCulinaria and I hope she has the time to do it and has not been tagged by anyone else.