My Kitchen and FAQ on your Demand- Get to know me week # 1

First of all, a big sorry to all my readers. I promised pictures of my new kitchen even before Reuben was born. Now he's hitting 4 months old already and I'm only getting the pictures out.

So, here is my kitchen. Nothing fancy about it, just a kitchen. Before that, let me clarify that I'm not rich. I just happen to stay in a small town where property is affordable and renovation workmanship costs are much lower than in big cities. I stay in a small town, where there is no McDonalds, ok.

Just in case you scroll too fast and missed my last paragraph,
Is there anything you want to ask me, for example.............
     "Wendy, do you clean the house daily with 3 kids around"
     "Wendy, when are going back to work"
     "Wendy, don't you get crazy with the kids around and staying home"
     "Wendy, what's your favourite kitchen tool?"
More info at the last paragraph


Here's the story about 'My Kitchen'.

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When we decided to renovate the house, we planned to extend 21 feet out to the side, with halfway the length of the house, it's like 21X17. Sounds big right? My wet kitchen will take up 80% of that extension, with the current kitchen turned into a dry kitchen. Not totally dry, just no cooking. I was planning to turn the dry kitchen into a drinks area. And a bar with high chairs will extend into the dining area from the dry kitchen. With cookie jars on the bar counter, bakes all placed there for consumption (provided the ants don't get to it :p), and we can have our drinks made there and the kids, their milk and juice.

In my wet kitchen, I planned my kitchen to have a 3X5 marble top island, if better 3X6. Then I can have friends over to bake. My husband even suggested I have the stools built to insert right under the island like how it is in the Science lab, with cabinets underneath to keep all my baking tools. Then I want to have a 3 ft round table for afternoon tea in the kitchen overlooking the garden through the 5ft tall windows.
I wanted to have a China display cabinet for my grandma's beautiful porcelain sets.

Then changes came by... and more changes ... and more changes. The dry kitchen has to switch to a different area with a smaller space, then later, even the dry kitchen had to go.  Then we had to cut the wet kitchen to make space for a maid's room because Reuben was concieved just before work started. Now, I'm left with only 40% of the original planned kitchen space. Made me wanted to cry. No island, no bar, no separate dry and wet kitchen............... My kitchen's my comfort zone, I don't think i'll move into another house and get another kitchen. The new kitchen outlay does not permit me to have an island as it is shaped like a L. And I can't extend the kitchen anymore to the side, I wanted some space to do some gardening as well. My dream is shaaaaaaaaaaaattered.
Swee San knew about the whole ordeal, about all the changes and pooor me.

When one of my friends came to visit me, she said she must look at my kitchen, and when she did, she covered her mouth and gasped. "Wendy, I am shocked. I imagined you will have a huge kitchen with an island. I never thought it will be this small, small in terms for you." Seee............ even my friend says so.

Well, my husband said, in 10 years time, we'll knock down the kitchen and renovate it again, ok. And since the maid is just for Reuben's time, we'll knock off that room later so that the kitchen can be big once again. Do you believe him? No I don't. The maid is no where to be seen even now. LOL. But then again, frankly, I don't need one. Provided, he doesn't complain about the state of the house. Hahahaha!

*****End of Kitchen Story.********

So now, please take a tour of my ZONE

A general view from different areas of my kitchen to let you have an idea of the layout

Here's where I cook. Yes I'm using a countertop stove. I don't want a built in stove top. Much to the shock of some that I used this old fashioned stove. LOL. Some can't believe that I bought this. Well, I had enough of wiping and cleaning under the stove whenever porridge overflows right into the cabinets via the small opening between the stove and the cut out hole. I totally had enough of it. The stove is Elba but it's not that good. I wanted to get a Zanussi, but the model I wanted keep running out of stock at HSL. The hood is Kelvinator. So far ok, very powerful. Catches a good amount of oil, especially after a good ole session of Char Kway Teow. Clean it often, close the windows when using it for maximum suction power and it'll be fine.

Here's my food prep area

Here's my ovens area, a built in oven and a microwave oven. The cabinets beneath the microwave oven is full of Tupperware. Scary.. LOL.
And I've got my cookbooks right above the microwave oven. Not a huge collection. The carpenter (not an ID, I just engaged a carpenter, see?) got a shock that I wanted a bookshelf in the kitchen. My hubby told me to forgive him for not seeing anyone with cookbooks in the kitchen. LOL.
And the whole cabinet from top to bottom of my oven is filled with my baking gadgets. It's a very tall cabinet :p
Oh yes, the oven's Bosch, not something from the high range, and how was it?...... hmm.. so so la.

Here's my new drinks and snack area, with the breakfast table right infront of it. No bar, no bar!!! I use the marble table for kneading and cake deco. I've got the aircond fixed there so that I can decorate my cakes without entering the bedroom :)

And another view of my kitchen. See the distance of the fridge door (or right) to the mixer? It's only 5ft. Cannot insert any island!!! See the short curtains above my double sinks? My husband hated them, saying they look like petticoats (底裙，kain dalam) and gave the excuse that he doesn't want to stand there and do the dishes. LOL.

And this is my new toy, bought from US. A bowl lifter model. I chose this because I want to bake bigger batches of bread. I'm stingy with electricity so baking one small loaf is out of the question. And if the bowl can be lifted, I can whip my eggs with a waterbath underneath.
My sister in law lugged it all the way back for me. Since its wattage is US 110V, and can't be plugged in directly into our sockets, I used a transformer. Works just as good. I don't know if you realised, I don't bake much bread before this. Hahaha.. Actually I've got a whole bunch of bread postings in my drafts, but I don't want to post them before I show you my kitchen. I'm learning to bake bread, yes proper bread.

I know, to make a good bread, one does not need a machine, like how some manual kneading gurus will tell you. But I don't have the luxury to stand there and knead for 1 hour to window pane stage. I have kids to attend to. And to have a mixer saves me time especially for big batch baking. I love it when I made triple batch of choux pastry for Reuben's full moon. My old hand mixer smelled bad with just one batch. And I could just get the machine to beat my eggs while I prepare the rest when baking sponge cakes. If I beat the eggs with a hand mixer, I need to stand there 10 minutes holding the machine and not doing anything else, what a waste of time. Time is precious to me when there are kids.

So, let me end this with another picture of my breakfast table that I eat my daily home made bread together with my husband almost every morning... And oh yes, I sewed those curtains... all of them, including the petticoat curtain, ;p

If you have any questions regarding me, my kitchen or just anything,

as long as it's not too personal, leave a comment and I'll try to answer you in another post this week. Please take note that I have the liberty to decline answering any too personal questions.

Anonymous questions will not be entertained. Leave a name.

Reason is because that I do recieve emails with questions regarding me, my kitchen and some other stuff.

So, it'll be great to share with everybody what you want to know so that others may know too.

 My Garden and Favourite 7 will be coming up next.