Given the focus on cooking and eating during the holidays, this is a time of year when any deficiencies in your kitchen will quickly become apparent, says New York Times food writer Mark Bittman.
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But if you’re one of those people who whines about your kitchen, don’t expect any sympathy from Mr. Bittman. After a recent photo featured him in his own small home kitchen, he was flooded with questions about how he makes do. (To see the photo and the discussion, go to “Mark Bittman’s Bad Kitchen.”)
Mr. Bittman said that while many readers were shocked by his kitchen, even more interesting is who he didn’t hear from.
None of the queries, condolences and commiserations came from women born before World War II, women (whom I often describe loosely if unfairly as “grandmothers”) who grew up learning how to cook from their grandmothers. They know that it’s fully possible to cook just about anything just about anywhere, with just about any equipment at hand. I have lovely memories of my grandmother using a beat-up paring knife — which, for all I know, came over with her on the boat — for hacking garlic (she did not mince), peeling potatoes and cutting up chicken. She did not own a cutting board, and would probably be as dazzled by a food processor as by an iPhone.
No calls came from chefs, either, or from fellow food writers. They, too, know that when it comes to kitchens, size and equipment don’t count nearly as much as devotion, passion, common sense and, of course, experience. To pretend otherwise — to spend tens of thousands of dollars or more on a kitchen before learning how to cook, as is sadly common — is to fall into the same kind of silly consumerism that leads people to believe that an expensive gym membership will get them into shape or the right bed will improve their sex life. As runners run and writers write, cooks cook, under pretty much any circumstance.
He also asked his friend, the chef Mario Batali, what he thought about all this.
“Only bad cooks blame the equipment,” Mr. Batali said. “I can make almost every dish in my restaurants on four crummy electric burners with a regular oven — as can just about anyone else who cares to.”
Check out the full article in the Week in Review section, “So Your Kitchen Is Tiny. So What?“
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Still, I suspect that this small city kitchen is not Bitmann’s sole kitchen. His book jacket bios state that he lives with his family in Connecticut. I would bet that he has a large, well-appointed kitchen in his home there and that this small one is simply in his Manhattan pied a terre. Further, it goes without saying that he is simply too successful as a cookbook writer to have this single residence with such a small, ordinary kitchen. He may indeed cook in this galley kitchen at times but I am willing to bet he does his more elaborate cooking in a larger kitchen. This is really rather disingenuous.
FROM TPP — This is silly. Mark lives full-time in New York and the kitchen pictured is his actual home kitchen.
— CaseyThe tiny kitchen is way underrated. I have always had the challenge of a small kitchen, not only have I made it work - but I think it has made me a better cook. Limited space forces you to prepare food in a methodical way that utilizes fewer dishes/tools with efficient chronology. One of the best side effects of a smaller kitchen is a smaller mess! I look forward to the upcoming holiday meal I have planned including beef tenderloin, roasted potatoes, roasted vegetables, sautéed green beans and rolls - all only utilizing 3 pans (the menu was also driven by the fact that my dinner table is also very small). The prep will be easy and so will the clean up. What is lacking in size can always be made up for with ingenuity!
— ErinHere here, ever the minimalist!
— jackI have cooked in a tiny kitchenette that was really just a narrow corridor between two rooms. What made it difficult was that you practically had to hold everything in your hands as there was no table to speak of to work on. Especially since it was filled with dirty dishes my significant other at the time neglected to wash (deal was he do the dishes, I do the laundry).
Nevertheless, I cooked great dinners from scratch under those conditions. When we broke up, my lazy dishwasher asked if he could have copies of my recipes (not).
— Susanna“Only bad cooks blame the equipment.”
Only a complete idiot would continue to struggle with bad equipment if they could afford to order food made by somebody else willing to suffer.
If you use a paring knife for every job because you’re afraid to learn to use a chef’s knife it will take you three hours to make a salad. I mean, it’s just a fact.
Extrapolate from there–if all your pans are microns thick and you have an electric stove that takes four minutes to get slightly warm and then zings up to hellblazing hot in a millisecond, then you’ll burn more things than if you have decent pots and a stove where you can look at the fire and see how big it is.
If you only have one spatula and it’s made out of the same crap they make Barbies out of because all your pots are covered with tender tender teflon and your spatula melts on your demonically stupid stove, then you’ll have to use metal implements in your irritating pans and you’ll get flecks of teflon in the scrambled eggs.
Having sucky cooking tools sucks sucks sucks.
— Nom, nom, nom!i couldn’t agree more. no matter what your equipment is the most important thing is that you do your own cooking and try to eat healthy.
if i can make fantastic food on a grad student’s salary, anyone can :)
— daryaI have a small kitchen in my new home and I love it! I cook
and bake mostly from scratch–and compared to my previous
kitchen, this one is easy to keep clean and easy to find things in. Endless drawers, cabinets, and costly equipment do not
a good cook make!
Years ago, I had a friend whose elderly aunt rolled out her
pie pastry on the kitchen table, using an empty White Rock
soda bottle as a rolling pin. She made the best pie pastry
I’ve ever eaten.
Maida Zoe
— maida silvermanActually, I PREFER a small kitchen, as everything is handy by. And one only needs a few good implements along with one’s creativity and sense about food to do perfectly good things. Granted, my food prep style is simple and healthy, but I still think it has to be yummy too. I’ve made great stuff on camp stoves in the middle of nowhere, as well as a 5th-wheeler that we lived in for a time, as well as tiny kitchens in little houses/cabins and apartments. I love being able to reach everything and to me it’s much more efficient than having to carry stuff from a big refrigerator all the way across a huge kitchen to the stove, and then across another area to get to the sink, etc…If one has a good knife, an ample cutting board(instead of a a couple of good frying pans, a couple of good pots and whatever processing gadgets you need like a blender or a food processor, one is so good to go. A truly good cook can pull something out of a hat in the middle of nowhere - long ago I was inspired by such a friend when on a major camping trip and I never forgot.
— CaraSo there was the annoyance of 2 adults roaming around a kitchentop the size of 2 napkins to cook 10+ different dishes for 20 people. We also have a bad stove, and a very tiny 4 pit gas stove with 4 minuscule burners that don’t regulate the temperature well, and an oven underneath it that doesn’t heat to the temperature it says on the dial.
So what we did: we COOKED: picked dishes on practicality in combination with other dishes, prepared beforehand what could be made beforehand, scheduled what goes into the oven when, and kept an eye on what was going on with the food by tasting/checking, and taking measures accordingly, and most refreshingly clean up after ourselves instantly. Food tasted fantastic, and no dishes afterwards.
I’m sorry people, you learn to cook by taking responsibility for what you do (and making mistakes along the way), not by blaming utensils, small kitchens, or cook book auteurs.
— Jay_JayI agree with “Nom, nom, nom!” that bad equipment is a very different thing than just a few really good tools, which is the point that Bittman, and many cooks in the simple food realm, like Alice Waters, make.
I write about eating mind to mouth which is about being creative with limited resources to live and eat well. This includes making do with small spaces. Just like with having limited tools you can have a small kitchen that does or doesn’t work well.
I think this idea speaks to the general theory of those who believe in the value and health of a little quality goes a long way. You don’t need a lot of food, but it should be of the highest quality, you don’t need a lot of space or a lot of kitchen tools but what you do have should make cooking enjoyable and easy (and also contribute to good health, like the value of cast iron and the risk of aluminum and teflon). This is all part of a coherent approach to life that Bittman and others do a great job in encouraging. You can have the nice kitchen and the great tools and the healthy, high quality whole food if you limit overall consumption. I am glad he mentioned grandmothers in this idea because it is the lesson we can learn from previous generations that quality is everything and quantity more of a burden.
more writing and photos on this idea at http://www.mindtomouth.org
— sageIn French culture books by Anne Barone and Mireille Guiliano and Robert Arbor and others, you learn that the want of a big kitchen is a somewhat American anomaly. The French have impossibly small kitchens by American standards and as a result they are more likely to make use of professionals to do their baking for them. I have pared down my kitchen accordingly and have not had a mixer, roasting pan, food processor, or coffee maker taking up space in my small apartment kitchen in a long time - and I have never owned a microwave.
— Iris M. GrossOh, clearly, you have not attempted to cook on my range. Yes, a small kitchen is fine, even preferable for those of us who really cook. But the quality of the appliances in that tiny kitchen does matter. I would trade, in a heartbeat, my large kitchen that others think is “so nice”, outfitted with an inadequate range, for my tiny, tiny kitchen with quality appliances that I left behind in a move this fall. Please tell me, Mr. Bittman, or anyone else, how to cook on that slick glass cooktop which does not maintain anything like a constant temperature, and which possesses the miraculous ability to burn and undercook food at the same time? How do I make pizza in an oven without a bottom element? Do tell….
This article, which would not have caught my attention in August, seems arrogant to me today, as I glare at my lovely to look at, big as a barn, but woefully inadequate kitchen. (for the record, and not meaning to sound arrogant, until this I could cook anything, and I do mean anything, I wanted to cook. With wonderful results. Now it is disaster after disaster, and I no longer enjoy cooking)
No, you cannot cook on anything. Sorry to burst your bubble.
— hollynn HewgleyI have always had a minimalist kitchen tool-wise– no processor, no microwave — a 3 speed hand mixer. My food processor is a mesh strainer. In fact the other day I realized I have used the same two Wusthoff knives to cook virtually everything for the last 20 years. They are like part of my arm. I laugh when I pass Williams Sonoma and all the precious, color-coordinated gadgetry.
I love to cook. I don’t even think about the space. My sister has the smallest kitchen imaginable and we’ve had plenty of fun preparing holiday meals in it– we just take turns with ‘our’ dish until everything’s ready. It actually gets the brain going figuring out how to make a small space work– you have to improvise. I’ve cooled cakes in funny places.
— francoisThen I’ll come up with another excuse…
Here are five more:
1) my doctor told me to stay off my feet…
2) my hands are extremely temperature-sensitive…
3) it is is 5:55 pm? I have no time to cook, so I’ll just get something on the way home…
4) my kitchen is way too hot to cook in because it is near the building’s chimney…
5) my stove is an electric stove, and I will only cook with a gas stove…
— Rob L, N Myrtle Beach SCIt’s definitely fully possible to cook just about anything anywhere, although I was delighted to finally have a gas stove after years of using an electric.
Nom, nom, nom: It’s not that hard to replace sucky equipment. Ditch the teflon for some nice cast iron–if you replace one pan every few months (or once a year, if money is tight), you still accumulate a good set of tools because the good stuff lasts for decades. I have had my cast iron for more than twenty years now and it’s still holding up just fine, and on the rare occasions that I’ve had something stick or burn, I can scrub the pan thoroughly and re-season it with no lasting harm, and I never deal with teflon flakes.
— J GreeneYoga: It is the practice, not the pose.
Running: It is the run (best enjoyed on trails), not the shoes or treadmill.
Cooking: It is the ingredients, not the accoutrements.
It is the activity (Bittman), not the commodity (Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, fancy appliances).
Many of us in the real world, raising families on middle class incomes and time (not NY), enjoy Bittman and appreciate Minimalism. We cook wonderful food in small, old kitchens with simple utensils.
Bittman may be rich from his cookbooks (good for him) but he still resonates with my family and his cooking is real.
Gotta run, got another bread coming out of the oven.
— FruityMario Batali might be capable of cooking anything with crummy equipment, but I can’t. I’m only a competent cook…not a gifted one. Like everyone else with my slightly-better-than-average skill (and that’s not saying much, speaking as one who studies consumer cooking practices and habits), I take my equipment into account when I decide what to cook.
And guess what, one can cook delicious, nutritious food, within the limits of normal top-of-stove cooking and oven roasting/baking. For that matter, it’s possible to eat well with a simple barbecue grill.. or.even a hibachi…and a hot plate. Billions of people in other parts of the world make amazing food (quickly and efficiently, I might add) on equipment just about equivalent to this.
It’s nice that Mark Bittman came clean about his kitchen. This should inspire people without massive, modern kitchens, that they actually CAN cook good food at home, too.
Thanks, Mark.
— WesleyI too have a tiny kitchen and have been able to make it work for many years. I never have to worry about misplacing tools and most things are always within arm reach. My small kitchen has taught me the lesson of simplicity and the importance of buying only that which I truly need. Superfluous items will not do because they just won’t fit in my kitchen!
— RunningHi mark
I remember fondly my grandmother’s small kitchen in Yorkville. She did all her prep work on the formica kitchen table situated in the hall/ entryway, Her homemade soups, chicken, mushroom and barley, vegetale, split pea, with all fresh ingreditent, have never been replicated since.. Her pie dough (for blueberry, appl) was rolled out on the formica table with a long tapered rolling pin and baked in a 24″ gas oven/range.
— rosanneIn this time of excess, your article was refreshing and timely.
Thank you.
For sure, everything I learned about cooking I learned from my maternal grandmother. Granny was a one pot marvel. I couldn’t wait to get home from school and open the door and inhale the wonderful aroma of whatever pot was simmering on her tiny kitchen’s stove.
I’ve pretty much stayed true to her style of cooking. Chop up a bunch of vegetables and whatever boned meat is on hand, throw it in a pot with a pinch of this or that and simmer for three hours.
Likewise, I have to give my deceased father some credit too. He loved to barbeque. Throughout the year I just pop stuff on the grill.
Married almost thirty years, until last year, I used the same few pots I got at my bridal shower for cooking. At my husband’s urging, I finally treated myself to a couple of new pots and couldn’t be happier. Besides a microwave, the only appliance that I’ve bought that has been a necessity is my rice steamer which I think Granny would approve of. After all, once her delicious pot of gold was ready to serve, it was usually portioned over a bed of delicious rice. :)
From time to time, my husband has asked me if I would like to remodel our kitchen. What for? Unless I could bring back Granny or Dad to help with the cooking, there isn’t a thing I would change in my kitchen.
— voracious readerMy mom is a Bittman devotee despite having your stereotypical gigantinormous high-tech stupid-expensive kitchen. Her six-burner stainless steel Wolf stove actually has some little electronic gremlins, though, which my crappy gas burner does not. Then again, she can fit a regular-sized cookie sheet into her oven, and I can’t. *sigh*
Aside to Nom Nom Nom — I just wanted to tell you, that even aside from your delightful screen name (I’m assuming you’re a cat macro fan like myself?), that I find your posts witty, entertaining, and very funny, even when I don’t agree. I always enjoy reading what you have to say.
— Emily - LIOMG — I just bought a house and i must say, i have like 2 sq ft of counter space. Thanksgiving dinner was a true challenge. I am sure this holiday will be no different.
You’re article really made me laugh, thanks!
— jessOh, yeah? What about storage? I have a small kitchen, and I have nowhere to store anything. Where am I supposed to put such things as Bittman’s beloved food processor when it’s not in use?
— MantelliHaha, I loved seeing that Bittman’s kitchen is about the same size as mine (24 sq ft). I have nonetheless had some great food come out of mine — crusty baguettes, crisp pizzas, savory stews, ephemeral asian custards, spicy thai food, elaborate pasta sauces, and good old fashioned apple pie.
I do it all with a small gas range (that’s about 50 years older than I am), an oven, and about 2′ sq of counter space. I knead dough in a big glass bowl (guys, you have to try this, it’s so easy to clean up!), I use a mortar and pestle for whatever I can (no food processor), and a simple hand-held masher (no blender).
My sister’s a lawyer and I envy her kitchen with all my heart (it’s the size of half my apartment). The thing is, she doesn’t have time to cook (too busy earning the money to pay for that house!), so she comes over to MY place for dinner ^_^
Also, I agree with Emily, Nom nom nom is hilarious! And Rob L., I can’t believe it, but I agree with you ^_^;;
— ToriOur power was out for two weeks after Hurricane Ike and we cooked just about everything on a charcoal barbecue grill, which has no counter space and sits on the ground. Not just barbecue, either: Soup, rice, noodles. We didn’t haul out the Dutch oven and attempt baking but I’m sure we would have had the power stayed out a little longer.
What’s with the electric-stove bashing? My ordinary twenty-year-old Kenmore heats up just fine and I’ve never had any trouble controlling the temperature.
It’s not the stuff, anyway. One small saucepan, one big stew pot, and a good frying pan (mine is a $15 Lodge cast iron one) will get you a long way. My favorite cooking utensil ever is a flat wooden spatula with an angled edge (sturdy, comfortable, doesn’t scratch the pots), which probably cost me a dollar at the most.
— Earlene