Features
By
Sonja T.
Come behind the scenes at Tartes and Recreation for a #KitchenTour and see Sonja's kitchen in Munich, Germany.
I'm very happy that it fits a table big enough for a few people. For me, a kitchen needs to be more than a place where just the food is cooked. It's the heart of the apartment. It's where you sit and talk, and drink and play board games and of course eat when you have guests.
Tell us about your kitchen?
Our kitchen isn't big, but as I said it's luckily wide enough to accommodate a table and a big part of my kitchen tools and dishes. Our apartment is really pretty old, and so is the kitchen. It looks like it's straight out of a 70's movie to be honest. The kitchen itself is about 30 years old, we only replaced the oven and fridge. Whoever furnished this kitchen (looking at you, Grandpa) decided to put the huge fridge and freezer in front of one of the two small windows to reduce the light to a minimum. Still, I love the room, I love being in there. It's warm and cosy and it feels like home.
What have you done to make your kitchen cosy, functional, beautiful or inspiring?
We often thought about painting the kitchen and changing things up, but to be honest - we're pretty busy people and have no strength left for such projects at the moment. So I try to make it as much of a happy and cosy place as possible. Placing fresh fruit and flowers on the table is a must. Every Friday I clean up my apartment and buy new flowers. As a foodblogger and regular cook I have a lot of tools and dishes, which I try to store in the cabinets. Keeping the worktop as empty as possible can do wonders. You can find only the tools I use everyday on there, which is my blender, water kettle and of course coffee maker. Hanging artwork or pictures is always nice and adds a personal touch. We used the empty space behind the fridge to build in a recycling system. There we collect paper, plastic, glass bottles and cans separately and take it to the recycling depot once a week. It's not especially pretty, but you gotta try your best to spare the environment.
How do you keep organized while cooking?
Well... most of the time I don't. I try to always create my mis en place so I don't get in a rush during cooking. And I try to get es much washing up done during cooking, but that's not always easy. I guess the only thing that's getting easier is when you have more experience and stop using to many tools and containers that you don't actually need. But hey, cooking can be messy, and that's alright. Being creative requires emotions and action.
Any tips & tricks for organising your pantry, fridge and ingredients?
I'm a minimalist when it comes to the fridge. I don't like hoarding different sauces and ingredients, because I tend to forget them and then I have to throw them out at some point. So I keep a small stock of stored items in my fridge and pantry, only those things I usually use every week. It also stops me from impulsive late night cooking and snacking. I recommend you to transfer ingredients like flour, sugar, spices, etc. into glass jars to keep the flavour and avoid flour mites.
Do you do a lot of cooking and what are your favourite dishes to make?
Yep, I do. I usually cook something every night for dinner and have leftovers the next day for lunch. And breakfast is definitely my favourite meal, I always prepare something good every morning. In winter I often cook soups and stews with root veggies and lots of herbs and in summer there are lots of smoothies and salads. I try to eat as seasonal and local as possible. If you'd want to know my favourite dish just now, it would be the grilled Avocado I posted just recently on my blog.
Where do you turn for new recipe ideas?
I browse multiple great food blogs regularly, both vegan and non vegan. I also like to flip through cookbooks and magazines. But I actually extremely rarely recreate other recipes, I only look at methods or flavour combinations I might like. Whenever I start trying out someone others dish I at some point just go my own way. But that's also what I frequently tell my readers - just use recipes for inspiration, there are no rules other than what makes you happy!
Do you plan out your recipes for the week or do you like to be spontaneous?
Actually I never do that. Whenever I tried that it didn't work, so I kind of surrendered to going day by day. And I absolutely loath wasting food, which I do when I buy too much at once. Also I can't really bring myself to cook something I'm not craving that day.
If you had three wishes, what would you do to make this your dream kitchen?
Ha, glad you asked! I've been repeating those wishes in my mind over and over again for some time now. 1. I'd like to replace the horrible 70's floor and tiles first. 2. Then I would either replace the kitchen or paint the old one and get rid of some cabinet to put the fridge somewhere else so it stops taking away all of my light. 3. I'd build in a little corner bench where the fridge is now and put the table just beneath the window. Some day!
Whose kitchen would you love to explore? Send us a message!
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