apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

On entering the kitchen of Ragdale House in Lake Forest, Illinois, you might have the peculiar sensation of traveling through time. With its cheery buttercup-yellow walls and peacock-blue painted farmhouse furniture, vintage stove, and generous porcelain sink, this homey kitchen might first appear to belong to a family from the early part of the last century.

Step in a little further, though, and you’ll notice the drawers and cupboards have all been clearly labeled in bold black type: “Coffee Carafes & Tupperware,” “Foil & Plastic Wrap,” “Cereal & Snacks.” You’ll see a dishwasher, microwave oven, plates and mugs from Crate & Barrel and Target, as well as a very 21st-Century assortment of convenience foods.

What’s going on?

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This being Ice Cream Month and all, we wanted to focus on the ingredients and producers that let us make this sweet creamy treat. So today we have another sort of treat for you: a tour of a dairy farm!

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We're on a kitchen tour roll. Last Thursday we featured a tour of Bento Expert Biggie of Lunch In a Box. On Monday, I took your through Joanne Weir's beautiful kitchen in San Francisco.

So, given Nora's post today about one of our favorite food writers, Melissa Clark, and her way of making DIY Maraschino Cherries, it's only fair to give you a sneak peek into an upcoming tour of Melissa's Brooklyn kitchen.

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Joanne Weir is an award-winning cookbook author (her new book, Wine Country Cooking just came out), a cooking teacher, a chef who cooked for five years at Chez Panisse, and a television personality.

When she's not leading culinary tours and classes through the Mediterranean, she lives and works in a thoughtfully designed, colorful and comfortable Grand Victorian house in San Francisco. The kitchen is an intensely personal space, much of it designed by her. Here she hosts spirited dinner parties, drinks wine with her fiancé, and whips up her morning smoothie. But her kitchen is also the set for one of her television show and her laboratory. It is a work/live space that works.

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Apparently we were a little late to the party last month when we predicted that Bento was a coming trend. We get it now: Bento is already a popular way to pack your lunch (or any meal), get your kids to eat, have some fun and express yourself, and help save the planet with a little less waste.

One of the most popular and comprehensive bento websites is Lunch in a Box, where you’ll find photos, top-tips and recipes, an online store for bento gear and an amazing list of bento links. We stopped by recently to visit Lunch in a Box’s Biggie for a mini-kitchen tour.

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Earlier this week I toured the Park Slope, Brooklyn kitchen of Elizabeth Crowell and Robert Wilson, the owners of the Sterling Place fine home décor and specialty gift stores. Robert and Elizabeth live in a beautiful four-story 1897 brownstone that they bought four years ago and live in with their two small children and two cats.

The current kitchen is in the back of the first floor (the former “men’s smoking room”) and features a large, sunny bay window overlooking the back yard. The kitchen is a generous size and is fully utilized by Robert and Elizabeth, who cook and eat in regularly. Robert grew up having dinner with his parents by candlelight every night – a tradition that was at times burdensome to a teen, but one that he now sees great value in and shares with his own children.

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When Kyle realized that she wasn't getting enough light in her Jamaica Plain apartment office, she did a very sensible thingl. She moved her office into the light-flooded pantry. Why not work in close proximity to the kitchen? We are obviously much in favor of this idea, especially when the kitchen is as colorful and lovely as Kyle's. Take a closer look - more photos below.

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When I asked Eric Gower how often he cooks in his kitchen his answer was "Three times a day! At least!" Eric also teaches cooking, works as a private chef, is the author of two beautiful and innovative cook books, The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen and The Breakaway Cook, and maintains a wonderful food-centric blog on his website. In short, he is a man obsessed with food, which is good news for us.

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We love talking about kitchens. In fact, we'd love to talk about your kitchen.

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Enter Slideshow

I recently had the great privilege of touring the Park Slope, Brooklyn home kitchen of Dan Kluger, the executive chef of Core: Club. Core, located on East 55th Street in Manhattan, is an exclusive private club with a restaurant that offers members a gourmet dining experience and extensive wine list. Dan started the 90-seat restaurant with advice from consulting chef, Tom Colicchio, and now oversees the operation, including numerous private events. Prior to Core, Dan spent seven years at Danny Meyer’s Indian-fusion restaurant, Tabla, where he also met his wife, Hannah. Before that, Dan worked at Union Square Cafe where, in his words, he got his start in the kitchen as a prep cook.

I was so curious to find out what a “real” chef’s kitchen looks like. Is it teeming with gleaming appliances? Is it organized alphabetically? Does the chef turn out seven course meals? Are there secret accouterments that only a chef would have? No – no – no – yes.

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One of the best ways to spend a Saturday afternoon in London is to crowd into bookstore/café Books for Cooks, a Notting Hill institution where you can browse thousands of international cookbooks and grab one of a handful of café tables to sample daily changing light meals cooked up in the open test kitchen in the back. By the time we got there at 2 pm on a recent Saturday, they were down to their last slice of coconut cake. But French owner Eric Treuillé, who runs the place with his English wife Rosie Kindersley, poured us a glass of biodynamic wine from his small vineyard in the Southwest of France, and talked about this irresistible oasis for the cookbook lover that it seems to us every city should have.

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The Kitchn reader Benita Larsson wrote in from Sweden to share some images of her sparkling white, inviting, immaculately organized family kitchen. After the jump, we catch up with Benita to hear about the kitchen renovation in her cheerful, charming house.

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Clotilde Dusoulier started her popular Paris-based English-language food blog Chocolate & Zucchini in 2003, but she first got interested in cooking while living in Northern California, and her young modern sensibility has won her many a fan abroad and more recently at home, where her blog is now translated into French. Her first book, the Chocolate & Zucchini cookbook, was published last year.

Out today is her latest book, Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris, a personal guidebook on where to eat, drink and shop for food in Paris. To celebrate, she let The Kitchn tag along to some of her favorite food shops in the Montmartre neighborhood where she lives...

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Remember London Urchin and her winning London flat from last year's Small Cool contest? We were instantly smitten with her tiny yet spacious jewelbox of a flat, but we were flat-out amazed by her kitchen. She has graciously given us an up-close look at the kitchen itself, and the story of how she and her architect came up with such a clever and beautiful small-space kitchen.

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