The Kitchen Clear-Out Before the Builders Come...

A 'do' rather than a 'make' this time, as being ovenless and with a bedroom full of boxes I find myself cramped for ovens or space to create cake or needle-based joys.  But I do have some advice for anyone who might be going through or go through such an upheaval as we are enduring here at the flat.

If you have a permissive parent, it is remarkably simple to appropriate items from the dusty bottoms (ahem) of kitchen cupboards and begin building your own kitchen - what used to be called the 'bottom drawer,' I believe.  What is simple, but not easy, to do is to decide which pieces of culinary ballast to jettison, and which may be useful at some future date (which is of course how they stayed in the cupboards in the first place).

How many bottle openers does one household need?  Will we ever use that fondue set, or the potato mouli? (Google it if you've never experienced this object, it is truly a thing of beauty and went into my 'bottom drawer.') What does this thing do?  If we find out what it is for, will we realise how much it could have been improving our lives all these years?  How 'best' is 'best' china if it is literally never used?  Which of these teacups have true emotional significance? (If you doubt that such a thing as a teacup can have emotional significance, then you are either my boyfriend or a similar non-hot-brown-stuff-imbiber, and a philistine).  

There is only one way - Keep, Move, Charity Shop, Bin.  Doubles of anything other than crockery, cutlery and wooden spoons etc. are out.  'Devices' are out.  If it has not even been seen in two years, it is subject to immediate tribunal to establish its status as 'for best' or 'shit.'  At the end of the day, as a student I managed to cook perfectly acceptable meals for 20 using only my slow cooker,  a single wooden spoon, chopping board, 2 sharp knives and a selection of cutlery swiped from parental drawers.  The event was 'BYOB - Bring Your Own Bowl' but the principle stands.  If such poverty and such plenty can coincide, then you should have no qualms about saying goodbye to that grapefruit knife, those can openers which don't work and the matching set of olive-skewers.

But leave me the potato mouli.