Finding A Kitchen That Fits You
Happy September! I am a big fan of fall. We had absolutely perfect weather last week, clear blue skies and highs in the 70s. The first leaves are just turning. University of Michigan students are back in droves, and Michigan won its first football game of the season, 30-3. (These non-conference games are supposed to be blowouts.)
A friend of mine who moved recently asked me to send them a photo of my kitchen, so they could figure out what they needed. I was happy to do so. I love my kitchen.
It’s not as big as my mother’s kitchen above, which I loved, particularly its black and white floor. She installed it after years of visiting elegant homes that had checkerboard floors, and it had a fun retro look.
But when we put her place on the market last year, our realtor told us that perspective buyers thought it looked dated. I shed a tear when we gave in and covered it up with “luxury vinyl flooring” that replicated wood.
The update led to a sale, but saying goodbye to that floor still hurts.
Historic homes
My kitchen is not a gourmet kitchen, like you see on Instagram and in magazines. But my kitchen has a back story, because I live in a historic building.
I’m living in a former church, which housed the second Black congregation in Ann Arbor. It was used by worshipers from 1895 to 1971, when the group moved to a larger church. Another congregation occupied it for a while, then the building became private residences in 2000, thanks to my landlord, who converted it into four apartments.
My friends upstairs have spaces with stained glass windows. My living space downstairs was the church’s offices. While the apartment lacks the soaring ceilings and iron lace balcony of my apartment in New Orleans, this kitchen is the best of anywhere I have lived in a long time.
There are lots of cupboards and drawers - I even have a cupboard for brown paper grocery handle bags. It has a roomy fridge with a water and ice dispenser. There are a microwave, stove, dishwasher, and a double sink. The counters are tile, and the floors are hardwood, so it is easy to clean. It has good lighting.
I’ve had far less functional kitchens. In Boston, I almost rented an apartment in Back Bay with a pocket kitchen and no drawers, and that was not the smallest kitchen I saw. My eventual apartment had a gorgeous view, and a tiny dishwasher that was more like a dish rinser, the type used by bartenders to wash glasses.
In Chicago, I lived in the Mies van der Rohe building above. I rented a condo from an owner who left the original stainless steel kitchen intact. It was a mid-century delight, save for one problem: if you plugged in a small appliance while the oven was on, you blew out a fuse.
The electrical panel used the old fashioned glass kind that you had to screw in. They cost $17 each and I found one hardware store that carried them. “Back again,” the clerk remarked when I came for a fresh supply.
High ticket expense
I visited other apartments in the building and while I was grateful that my mid-century aesthetic remained, I wondered what it would cost for my owner to fix it up.
The answer: plenty. According to Remodeling Magazine, the average cost of a mid-range kitchen remodel in an upscale house (think McMansion) is $80,809 and an upscale kitchen remodel costs $158,015. That is almost the price of my first bungalow.
HomeAdvisor, meanwhile, says the average 2023 kitchen remodel price is in the $14,549 to $40,425 range. A small kitchen remodel can cost $10,000 to $15,000 and a lavish remodel can cost as much as $130,000 plus.
Home builders say that if you plan to sell within five years, you should only spend as much as you can make back when you put it on the market. If you’ve sunk down roots in your current house, that’s the time for a big tear up.
I have never re-done a kitchen in the condos and homes that I’ve owned, save for replacing appliances. I’ve witnessed my friends’ and family’s renovations, however, and to be honest, I’d rather live with what I’ve got than be without a kitchen for weeks or months.
What you use versus want
In my many kitchens, I’ve learned a fundamental truth: only keep on hand what you actually use. My mother had a fully stocked kitchen, plus a wall of shelving in the basement that housed every imaginable item for entertaining. Name a holiday, she was ready.
I kept a few of her things, like a silver chafing dish that holds a Pyrex lasagne pan, which is useful at brunches, but the rest were sold in the estate sale.
Each of my moves over the past decade has given me the opportunity to assess what is in my active kitchen rotation, and what I can dispense with.
Back in the early ‘00s, I went on a Le Creuset buying spree. Like a lot of cooks, I was dazzled by the French enameled cookware. More dangerously, I was within driving distance of a Le Creuset outlet store. Where Carrie Bradshaw bought shoes, I bought Le Creuset.
Eventually, I had eight different hefty pieces, in either cobalt blue or orange (my only excuse was that it was on sale). That was fine, as long as I had space for it, which I did in the spacious house that I rented in Phoenix.
But when I moved back to Michigan that time (yes, this is a pattern), I decided to purge it. Now, I have only one piece, my original blue French oven.
On the other hand, I love vintage Pyrex, the kind made before the company was sold in 1998 and the formula was changed. I cannot function without my Pyrex primary colors bowls, which I wrote about for The Takeout.
This summer, on my tour of Northern Michigan libraries, I visited a resale shop and found a set of five Pyrex berry bowls, shaped like a soup bowl, in white glass trimmed in navy blue. They get daily use now in Ann Arbor, and I just found a matching one on Etsy, so I’ll have six.
My landlord recently asked me if I was comfortable in my apartment. He knows I am aiming to live in another cottage someday. But otherwise, I told him I would be happy to stay in it forever, primarily because of the kitchen.
“A lot of people say that,” he replied.
Farewell To A Troubadour - And Business Genius
The entertainment world breathed a sigh of nostalgia on Saturday. Jimmy Buffett, singer of hummable melodies and laid back songs, died at age 74.
You may know him best for his song Margaritaville. It was the launch pad to an impressive business empire, estimated by Forbes to be worth $1 billion. Yes, billion with a “b.”
Jimmy owned a 28 percent share of Margaritaville Holdings LLC, founded in 1985. It included 23 Margaritaville Cafes worldwide, seven 5 O’Clock Somewhere bars and grills, and a JWB Steakhouse.
His company also had numerous airport locations, including one here in Detroit, along with retail stores, resorts, hotels, housing developments, casinos, and cruise ships. You saw many of them featured on Wheel of Fortune, of which Margaritaville was a sponsor.
Along with his business dealings, Jimmy continued performing, and kept appearing as recently as last month. He told fans of some medical issues earlier this year, apologizing for canceled gigs, and declaring, “NOT YET.”
Unfortunately, “yet” has now arrived, but Jimmy leaves behind quite a legacy, both musical and economic.
Hanging On By A Thread In New Orleans
“Yet” also seems to be on the horizon for New Orleans’ last - and ground breaking - food hall. The St. Roch Market is teetering.
St. Roch (pronounced “rock”) opened to enormous fanfare in 2015. It involved the renovation of a historic market in a neighborhood just beginning to see gentrification.
When I first visited, the market bustled with food stands selling fresh produce, cocktails, seafood, Vietnamese food, baked goods and more. It was heralded as proof the city had conquered Hurricane Katrina and was growing again.
We went back to it this winter for the ‘Tit Rex parade, which features miniature Mardi Gras floats, and I immediately saw a difference. Stands had closed, and just a few venders were left. The contrast of the mostly empty market with its bustling days was jarring.
A potential rescue might be on the way. WWL-TV reports that one of the market’s original venders, Kevin Pedeaux, owner of the three local CR Coffee Shops, has offered to take over St. Roch Market as manager and leaseholder.
A final decision is up to city officials. It will be interesting to see what happens. When St. Roch opened, there was some grumbling by neighbors, who felt the vendors were too expensive, and aimed primarily at attracting upscale tourists.
St. Roch isn’t alone in experiencing problems: multiple food halls across New Orleans have opened and failed, primarily because the proprietors have not been able to cover their investments and costs.
The renovation of St. Roch was beautiful, and it would be a shame if the market isn’t put to some kind of use.
Are Restaurants Actually Rebounding?
There have been a bunch of high profile restaurant closures lately, as you have read here. But Yelp, the restaurant delivery app, claims that openings are on the rebound.
Yelp’s data showed that new restaurants grew by 12 percent in the first six months of 2023, compared with 2022, while new bars grew by 15 percent. It expects that new business openings this year will surpass 2022. Every state has shown an increase in new restaurant businesses, with New York, Florida, Texas and California leading the way.
In 2022, about 638,000 new bars and restaurants opened, according to the Yelp data. So far this year, about 483,000 have opened, with four months to go.
But Yelp notes the number of new openings is down compared with 2019, before the pandemic devastated the industry. You can see the trends in this chart.
Our Latest Giveaway: 50 Pies, 50 States
I have one copy of 50 Pies, 50 States by Stacy Mei Yan Fong for a paid subscriber. In order to be eligible, upgrade your subscription.
Once you’ve done so, or if you already have a paid subscription, reply to this email or send a message to CulinaryWoman@gmail.com. Reply by this Wednesday, Sept. 6.
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You can read more about Stacy’s book here.
50 Pies, 50 States: An Immigrant's Love Letter to the United States Through Pie https://a.co/d/2Jt0GNE
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
Friday was a delightful day. The cast of Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me came to Ann Arbor to do two shows at Hill Auditorium. My long-time friend Peter Sagal asked me to take him to Zingerman’s Deli.
He brought along the show’s legendary announcer, CBS newsman Bill Kurtis, and executive producer Mike Danforth, who was my neighbor in Hyde Park. Grace Singleton, one of the Deli’s managing partners, gave us a warm welcome.
The guys ate sandwiches - Reubens plus the sandwich of the month - and I had my favorite ZCobb salad, the Deli’s riff on a Cobb.
Save the date! If you will be in the Detroit area on Oct. 1, you are cordially invited to the inaugural Books & Brews festival at River’s Edge Brewing Company in Milford. I will be signing books along with several of my fellow Michigan Notable Authors. We’ll have a panel discussion at 3:30 pm.
I am happy to set up more book events during fall and winter, and would be delighted to talk to your group, either in person locally or over Zoom. Just get in touch.
For The Takeout last week, I wrote about Amy Thielen’s delightful new cookbook, Company. It was recently featured in the CulinaryWoman Reading Room.
On the Lions, Towers and Shields podcast, we held an animated discussion of Sunset Boulevard. Hear about my childhood encounter with Gloria Swanson, and my impressions of the musical version versus the film.
You can find me:
Email: culinarywoman (@) gmail dot com
Instagram: (@) michelinemaynard and (@) micki_in_nola (devoted to New Orleans posts)
Etsy: check out my City Tips Vintage shop, which has some beautiful Japanese linens.
I hope you have an enjoyable Labor Day holiday. Solidarity with striking members of SAG-AFTRA and the Writers’ Guild, and with all my fellow union members.
I am taking Labor Day off. I’ll see paid subscribers on Wednesday with the CulinaryWoman Reading Room, and everyone else next week.