Kitchen HQ

a behind-the-scenes tour of my home kitchen

Hello and happy Leap Day to those who celebrate!

You know how January feels like it’s 8 weeks long? February usually does for me, too. And this year we actually do have a whole extra day in February. Don’t get me wrong, though—we had a very fun month around here.

We rang in the Year of the Dragon (my birth year!) with our friend Kristina Cho (her newsletter, Eat Cho Food, is a favorite). We danced along at the Super Bowl halftime show / Usher concert. We proclaimed our love for valentines big and small. I attended the Plant Futures Fest in Oakland and came home with a comfy sweatshirt that says: “plants are the future,” which yes, amen, and I spent some good time in the garden. I’m committed to planting a kitchen garden at home this summer. I’d like to have a box dedicated to medicinal herbs for tea. I’ll give Arthur his own little patch elsewhere in our garden, somewhere for him to tend and (over)water and care for with his loving hands. You can bet I will be growing lettuce.

I’ve been hard at work co-authoring a cookbook that I can hardly wait to tell you more about. Stay tuned for the official announcement coming in March! And there’s another big, juicy project to share soon as well.

In lieu of a recipe this month, I would like to give you a little behind-the-scenes tour of my home kitchen. This is my HQ, where I develop and test recipes (both my own and other people’s), dream up ideas for new recipes, and honestly do much of my writing. I often set up my laptop on our dining room table and then bounce between the kitchen and the computer, getting up to wash dishes or pull a cake from the oven or chop carrots. I feel so lucky to get to do this job.

Sometimes people think I use only top-of-the-line cooking equipment, but the truth is that it’s crucial for me to test recipes with the regular tools that most cookbook readers are likely to have in their own kitchens. That way, I can ensure the recipes I write don’t ever ask you to bring three separate large pots of water to a boil, because who has three large pots? We have only one. My workhorse kitchen tools are good quality (they must withstand near-constant use), but they’re nothing super fancy. My oven holds a steady temperature—important for accurately testing baking recipes—but you’ll see it’s otherwise quite average.

There’s a lot of counter space, hallelujah! We use thick butcher block slabs (salvaged, cut, and power-sanded till smooth) that move around the kitchen and get subbed in and out of rotation occasionally, when they need some repairs. I do follow the strict rule of “Only Fruit Allowed” on one specific cutting board. Have you ever eaten a strawberry that tastes faintly of raw garlic? You’ll only do that once before becoming a convert.

For a long time, I did not own a microwave. This wasn’t because I was anti-microwave but rather just that I had never bought one of my own that was worth schlepping from rented apartment to apartment. Also, most microwaves are such eyesores. But then I worked on a cookbook—I think it was one of Nadiya Hussain’s—and in it was a recipe that required a microwave. I searched and searched until I found the most pleasing-to-look-at model on the market. (Isn’t our microwave cute?!) Now, my life has changed for the better. We use the microwave multiple times a day (to heat milk for Arthur, to rewarm leftovers, to soften butter for baking recipes, and on and on) and there is no going back.

What else? Oh, the espresso machine! While living in Italy, I fell hard for espresso and frothy steamed milk. A moka pot gets the job done, and we relied solely on ours for the first nine months of Lewis’s life. But there’s nothing quite like a proper pulled espresso. My machine is made by Lelit and I try to take good care of it so that it will take good care of me.

What an absolute privilege and joy it is to work in this kitchen. I adore being in the space, and I promise you it never looks as clean as it does in these photographs.

See you next month,
Maria