Getting to know our kitchen

I had a lot of firsts in the kitchen last Friday. I made my first cake from scratch (carrot cake), my first two-layer cake and my first cream cheese frosting. It was a tasty experiment, and one I won't mind repeating. Paul is allergic to nuts and had never tried carrot cake before. I thought it was high time he had and eliminated the nuts from my recipe. Besides, it's rare that I've actually had a piece of food that Paul's never tried. It's almost always the other way around.

One thing that hasn't changed much since we moved to New York is the amount of time I spend in the kitchen. Paul is still the main cook, though I will make an occasional visit. Before I got a job I made some plum dumplings that didn't turn out too bad (but they took way too long to make), and I'll regularly bake banana bread or oatmeal cookies. Every few months Paul and I will spend a few hours of the weekend rolling out pasta and making ravioli. I still won't touch raw meat, though. If I make dinner for myself, I'm perfectly happy with some kind of peanut butter or couscous concoction.

In any case, our kitchen isn't all that small. Rather, it's not that small compared to our old kitchen in Columbus. We have a fair amount of cabinet space, no counter space and room for a table that can comfortably sit two (although we've fit four). One nice change: In Columbus our spare room closet was filled with kitchen appliances. With our lack of closets here, we don't have that option even if we wanted to.