Does anyone ever have enough counter space? The answer rumbles from galleys to Architectural Digest-worthy kitchens: HELL, NO!
I hypothesize that stuff expands to fit the amount of counter space in any given kitchen. People in tiny apartments are forced to store their countertop appliances under beds or in closets. A friend of mine in Manhattan collected cereal sets (turn of the 20th-century canister sets, often with Yiddish labels). Most of them had to stay in storage until she moved into her current co-op apartment. Now that my sister has downsized, her cookie jar collection is all over her flat. As kitchens get bigger, people feel freer to buy bigger things. The two-person rice cooker is traded for a larger, neuro-fuzzy-logic model. A small blender is replaced by a Vita Mix that barely fits under the upper cabinets. The single utensil crock turns into two utensil crocks. (We plead guilty to this last offense.)
I can count two homes where I had enough counter space. My first apartment in Dallas had plenty for one reason: I was poor and I only had a blender and a Moulinex La Machine. I also only had about 15 cookbooks at the time, but that’s another story. The house we rented during my postdoc in Dallas had a decent amount of counter space. This was because the kitchen had ample cupboards into which we could stuff things we didn’t use on a daily basis. It also had an antique European stove where we set the toaster oven. The second runner up was the house we rented in Seattle. While it was a glorified galley kitchen, the countertops were deep enough so the heavy-duty mixer and Cuisinart were out of the way.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my main criterion for considering a new electric kitchen toy is if it deserves a place of honor on my counter. Most new things don’t pass the counter space test.
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