But are kitchen’s actually that girly?

I absolutely adore kitchen gadgets.  This is one of my girliest shopping addictions, second only to my irrepressible love of sparkly things, namely diamonds.  And let us be honest, I do not go around buying diamonds on anything resembling a regular or even occasional basis.  Purses sporting brand names like Coach or Dolci and Gabana sunglasses or cute $10 sundresses do not hold much temptation for me.  Okay, maybe the $10 sundress catches my eye, but I can easily walk away without it since I have plenty of clothing options (looking in my closet you might raise an eyebrow and ask, “really?” but I get by just fine with my tattered wardrobe).  I do enjoy clothes shopping and admit that I get frustrated sometimes when another tiny hole appears in one of my few shirts, but I divide my time fairly equally between the yoga room, the dive boat, my kitchen and my couch.  We just do not go out all that often and so my nice “going out” clothing does not get too much love.  My point being that I can forgo clothes shopping without much regret.
But oh how I love to accessorize my kitchen!  I spent five years building my kitchen and even moved it all the way to Hawaii.  I had a Kitchen Aide blender, garlic press, muffin tine and baking sheets, a bundt pan, wok, all sorts of utensils and mixing devices, a set of MesserMeister knives, bamboo cutting boards, pyrex mixing bowls and measuring cups, a coffee percolator and bean grinder, a cabinet chock full of spices, and the list continues.  Then I left Hawaii and the majority of my kitchen stayed behind.  The knives made it to my parents’ house in Arizona and the coffee grinder made it all the way to the Bahamas with me.  The rest was donated to my last place of residence.  Now I am learning to make due with my tattered kitchen as well as I make due with my tattered wardrobe.
Here is the summary of my kitchen here:  we have a broiling pan, plastic mixing bowls, a spatula, a large spoon and a slatted spoon.  We have a glass baking dish and recently acquired a loaf pan and a small baking sheet.  Our one ‘sharp’ knife was recently replaced by three stainless steel blades with an actual edge on them.  Chris found them at Kelly’s for half off the same day we got our baking sheet.  We only have plastic cutting boards so how long they will remain sharp is a question I try not to ponder.  We don’t have measuring cups or spoons.  We don’t have a rolling pin.  We don’t have muffin tins or Bundt pans or cake pans or a pie plate.  Forget about a hand mixer.  Currently we are in the possession of a blender, but it is only on loan.  We have one large pan, one tiny pan and a large stock pot and three smaller pots (of which, one is retired with a broken handle).  We also have a cheese grater and potato masher.
Cooking in a makeshift kitchen means having to be creative.  We have three white mugs that turned out to be exactly one cup.  One can of Coke Zero is 12 oz and fills one and a half of these mugs.  The mug works almost as well as a true measuring cup with fourth cups and half cups just a matter of eyeballing it.  Among our silverware we have big spoons, medium sized spoons and little spoons:  Tablespoons, half tablespoons and teaspoons.  After all, these are what the measurements were named for in the first place.  Baking is not an exact science, at least not in our kitchen (though the reproducibility of our results is at times questionable).  Before the addition of the baking sheet, we struggled with items like biscuits and cookies.  We tried just oiling the broiling pan, but it always charred the bottoms before the morsel was cooked all the way through.  We tried the glass casserole dish but came across the same problem.  Aluminum foil only seemed to exacerbate the problem.  I was so pleased when a baking sheet became part of our kitchen, which brings me back to shopping for kitchenware.
One Wednesday, Chris and I headed out towards the mall to get a few essentials and to replace the casserole dish that I had recently destroyed in an impressive show of dimwittedness resulting in explosion.  My first mistake was broiling chicken in it.  My second mistake was putting cold water on it before it had cooled.  Yes, boys and girls, my background is in the lab sciences and so, yes, I did know better.  The fact remains that the casserole dish was shattered and we needed a new one.  While at Costless, Chris suggested we find a baking sheet but all the ones they had were in bulk and so we headed to Kelly’s to search their kitchen section.  Wandering down the isles lined with shelves full of kitchenware had me as giddy as a kid in a candy shop.  Choosing a baking sheet did not take long – we went for the cheapest option.  We considered a skillet, but the truth is that duty on kitchen goods must be sky high because we could not find one for under $40 and don’t even get me started on the prices of the electric skillets.  Chris found a three knife set for half off that would make our dicing and slicing lives much easier.  Then he patiently waited for me as I fantasized about outfitting our kitchen.
I delicately touched a Bundt pan, my fingers as gentle as if I were handling a silken blouse.  My mind flipped through my recipe catalogue and then transported me into my kitchen where I merrily poured in the Brooke’s Cake batter, a family favorite full of lemon and cinnamon goodness.
“What’s that for?” Chris’ quarry brought me back to the present reality.
“Making Bundt cakes.”
“What else?”
“Umm…making Bundt cakes.”  There are two good reasons why we would not spend money on a Bundt pan.  First of all, we did not even own muffin tins yet.  Perhaps more so, for the sake of our blood sugar and waist lines, I did not need to be making Bundt cakes all the time.  Muffin tins would be far more practical since at least muffins come in healthy type varieties while Bundt cakes are, well, cakes.  My focus off the Bundt pans, it was free to travel towards those muffin tins.  There, only a little ways down the shelf, were the deepest muffin tins I had ever seen.  The muffin bottoms were the hooker heels of muffin tins, standing three inches tall.  These held only the appeal of the awe inspiring.  I am a sucker for muffin tops myself and so the regular sized muffin tins suit my taste far better.  Kelly’s had giant muffin tins and mini muffin tins but no muffin tins that were just right.  Besides, I had taken to putting muffin batter into the loaf pan with successful muffin-loaves resulting and so muffin tins could surely wait.  My eager gaze shifted targets and landed on the crock-pot of all crock-pots.  I should not even refer to it as a singular item since it had three separate pots in a single stand.  This was the slow-cooker’s dream (except perhaps that they were all roughly the same size whereas it would be useful for at least one to come in a sauce size since three dishes of entree proportions is a little unrealistic barring entertainment occasions).  Again, my reaction was simply awe, having absolutely no use whatsoever for a three pot slow-cooker.  The third item after the Bundt pans was again back on my list of desired accessories.  A simple rolling pin.
As I mentioned earlier, we do not own a rolling pin.  So how do I roll out dough?  While we do not have a rolling pin, we currently have eleven empty liter bottles of rum sitting on top of the refrigerator.  One of them, oddly enough the one with engraved writing down the side, is the designated rolling bottle.  On a functionality scale of one to ten, ten being a rolling pin and one being my hands, I would rate this rum bottle a solid seven.  Points are scored for it being round and of proving its worth while points are taken away for it leaving the raised wording [] and being somewhat slower and more cumbersome than a pin.  A seven is a respectable score, however, and our kitchen shopping budget being maxed out for the day, I had to stick to window shopping.  There comes a point when window shopping turns from good healthy fun to simple masochism.  A trip down the appliance isle and a quick look at the food processors pushed me over that line and so I finally pried myself away and let Chris lead me to the check out line.  Once away from the high priced glamour of the food processors I was free to admire my little $8 baking sheet.  My head filled with homemade pitas and biscuits and cookies, all missing the crispy bottoms that had plagued my baking career thus far.  Thus far we have made all of the above and our pan has performed remarkably with all bottoms remaining unburned.