Here is my kitchen. It's where I spend perhaps 75% of my day. There's the cooking and puttering and such, but those barstools are also my writing spot, the kids' homework spot, and (more often than not, alas) where we eat dinner, with the kids sitting on the stools and me leaning over the countertop on the other side (whatever, formal sit-down dinners are overrated).
There's something that my kitchen's missing, though.
When we were looking for our new house, we knew that we needed a space for guests. My family lives in Texas, and we love having them out to visit. We also have friends who regularly come to Los Angeles, so we almost always have someone staying with us. When we first toured our new house, we noted the detached doctor’s office behind the house, which had three rooms – a waiting room, a bathroom, and a main office. I knew that with a little work we could convert the space into something that would allow us to comfortably host frequent visitors.
Main room, before
I would not consider myself a "soup person." Soup seems to me like a thing you let someone else order and then take a sip of, while you go ahead and eat the steak that you very smartly ordered instead. But last week I got a completely random craving for lentil soup, and made it...and have since made it three times - the last time for Francesca, who thought she was getting sick, and then didn't, because in addition to being unbelievably delicious this soup is also a miracle potion with magical curative powers.
You should make it.
What You Need:
My daughter, painting her bedroom
In the month or so since I moved into the new place, I've painted my daughter's room, put down floor tiles in the kitchen, patched the ceiling, painted the front door, installed kitchen drawer pulls, and added lighting both indoors and out. Tomorrow, I have "replacing the iffy doorknob" on the schedule, and blackout blinds are in my future. So it didn't surprise me when a reader asked why in god's name I would do so much work on a house that I don't even own - I'm saving up to hopefully buy in the area within a couple of years, because the owner has eventual plans to build a new structure on this lot.
There's a simple answer, and a more complex one. The simple answer to "Why put so much work into a rental?" Because that's what I do. It's what I've always done, even as far back as college, when I spruced up every single one of my dorm rooms to the point that they looked like (teeny-tiny) twentysomething apartments.
I would like to officially announce that I shall be commencing my residency as "That Blogger Chick Who Won't Shut Up About Her Instant Pot." I can't help it; it makes me feel like a GENIUS.
Enter the dish I fully went ahead and improvised the other night, because I happened to have chicken thighs and mushrooms in the refrigerator, because everybody likes cream, and because my son requires pasta to be present in 100% of his meals. Presto: Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Tetrazzini. (I'm not sure this is technically tetrazzini, but whatever: My recipe, my rules.)
What You Need:
