the kitchen, and things to come

A lot is said about a kitchen, and about a person (or couple, or family) by the things in it. By the choices of cutlery and plateware. The pots and pans you own and use, the layout of the space. Bunny and I have been trying to slowly reclaim our kitchen from the disaster area that it has become (part of which includes a reorganization of our pantry that was completed the other weekend). We're always thinking hard about the new gadgets we want, and researching them before we purchase them.

We don't, however, have much of a grand, overall plan. We know that there are cooking utensils and gadgets that we want. We want more dutch ovens and serving dishes. That we like classic whites in slightly unexpected shapes like sloped oval bowls, and that we would like our kitchen to have a rainbow of colours (for which reason we always look for a colour we don't already have when buying things like dutch ovens). We're never going to have that perfect set of KitchenAid Empire Red, because that would be boring.

Usually there's nothing we need that's too pressing. We have the basics, or enough of the basics to get by. So we tend to have a hodge-podge strategy of buying kitchen things. Whatever inspires us, as we can afford them. Right now, that's not going to work.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we're getting married, yo, and people keep asking us to register for stuff. So, we need to give some thought to that. Secondly, we're having a crisis of basics.

Cutlery is disappearing. As in, I wash the same spoons four times a day some days because we have so few. We can just get by on what we have, but it makes it awkward when we want to have friends over for dinner/drinks/what have you. Glasses are breaking. We have broken wine glasses, tumblers, everything. Currently we are reduced to drinking water out of coffee mugs or 6 ounce juice glasses (which tends to be enough to have one sip of water, and then refill.) We also need new plateware. Really we need a 12 set, so that we have enough for a family of four or five one day. Right now it's not unusually to not have enough plates for dinner.
At the behest of one of my best friends, I'm refraining from going out and buying new glasses and plates when I see ones I like on sale. But it also has me slowing down and thinking more closely, asking myself "would I want to use this plate for the next 20/30 years?" If my friends are buying something for me that I've asked for, I'd really like it to be something we will use for the rest of our lives. It also has me thinking about how these pieces work together - these are the sort of basics I haven't had to think about in a long time.

There are a few things that I know make both Bunny and I happy in kitchenwares. So we need to really look into those in order to actually build an approrpriate registry, and a kitchen that actually works together.