K is for Kitchen

I am not a chef.  I'm not even a cook.  I like to cook, and I love to eat.  Sometimes, I can produce something that is pretty good.  I'm not very good at "Cooking by Ear," as I like to call it.  I can follow a recipe, but I'm not very good at coming up with my own ideas.  I love to watch Food Network.  I am able to use their ideas and alter them here and there to come up with some deliciousness every now and again.  I think if I had a better kitchen, I would be a better cook.  Let me show you why.

This is my kitchen.  In southeastern Virginia, it is just about impossible to find an apartment that doesn't have a "Galley-Style" kitchen, which you see pictured here.  They even mention it in the advertisements like it's an upgrade or something.  If you can't tell from the picture, the floor space in my kitchen is about 7 feet x 3 feet.  Yeah, that little back area?  That's the laundry room.  I have 6 "large" cabinets, and 4 small cabinets.  That's it.  My usable counter space measures about 2.5 square feet.  The rest of the counter is taken up by my microwave, small knife block, and coffee pot.  My sink has no sprayer, and each basin is about half the depth of a normal sink.  Here it is from some other angles.

Look at all that counter space over the dishwasher!!!!

SOOOO many awesome cabinets!!

 
I do have a gas oven/stove.  I think most cooks prefer gas, but I had never cooked in a gas oven until I moved here when I was 25.  I tried to broil some fish...I didn't know that the broiler is that drawer in the bottom of the oven.  Needless to say, that fish took a while.  I actually had to Google "broil in gas oven" to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Someday, I am going to have a fantastic kitchen.  It will have stainless steel appliances.  It will have a butchers block.  It will have enough cabinet space that I can buy a new frying pan without having to completely rearrange all my cookware to find a place for it.  It will have enough cabinet space that things do not fall out and hit me in the face, or fall behind the stove, never to be seen again.  It will have a fridge that actually has a meat and cheese drawer in it, so I don't have to use a plastic tub to hold my deli products.  It will have a freezer with an ice maker.  It will have enough counter space for me to roll out cookie dough AND sit my cookie sheets on the counter at the same time.  It will have one of those sweet pull down faucets with the one-touch so I don't have to smear chicken goo all over the handles before I wash my hands.  It will have a micro-hood so I don't have to waste my counter space with my microwave.  It will have a bar where people can sit and chat with me while I cook--which really means, it will have a place for me to sit and chat with Casey while she cooks for me :).  It will have enough room for me to open the dishwasher and the oven at the same time.  I could probably go on and on, but I'll wrap this up.  Someday, I will have a nice kitchen.  Someday.

Anyone else have a room in their house that makes them feel oppressed?