Eating From the Ground Up

beauty and use (a mighty nest giveaway)

by

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I’m an aspirational organizer.

I think that once, long ago, I really was a real organizer. But since the stuff of adulthood has filled my life, it’s all dreams now.

In my dreams, my file cabinet is not the drawer filled with the last 5 years of paid bills–it’s color coded and clear, and it contains only the papers I need. I see jars lined up, alphabetized, always put back in their section. The mudroom has no flip-flops in winter, no winter boots in the summer. I know where everything is. Each object has its place. In my dreams, pinterest is real. 

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(I have a friend who gathers her sheet sets together, folds them correctly, and labels them. Her linen closet makes me want to be a better human being.)

But really, I know that I will never have that entire week to reorganize the house, and if I had that open expanse of time, I’d fill it with walks and dinner and books and scrabble and The Walking Dead.

I’m trying to see the more organized closets and mudrooms and pantries in the world (both on and offline) as a basis for inspiration, not comparison. So in my better moments, I start from where I am, and I try to bring little gifts of accessible beauty into the kitchen. I make twenty minutes for one shelf of the pantry, and empty the plastic bags into jars. I label the jars, and for that moment,  I appreciate the neat row like an Andy Goldsworthy-esque pile of sticks at the side of the sea, ready to be swept away by the rising tide. I buy daffodils, and they do their sunny magic in the center of a table filled with markers and permission slips and library books. Rosie hands me her latest piece of artwork, and instead of adding it to the stack on my desk, I put it up on the wall by the cookbooks. These are all small, beautiful gifts to the kitchen.

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When Annie at Mighty Nest asked me what I’d like to work with in this new giveaway, I asked her to send me something she thought was beautiful. I wanted a chance to talk about these small gifts that make the kitchen feel so good, even when its a mess. She sent me two big boxes, and as I unwrapped the brown paper from each gift, I knew that it was going to be good.

She sent an entire shelf’s worth of perfect Kilner jars.

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These are the great jars with the hinge top attached, and there are sizes and shapes I’ve never seen before. These are the kind of jar that I pick up on the shelf at the kitchen store and just the feel of them makes me imagine a fully organized pantry.

Tucked into one of the boxes was one more gift, a length of extra-large bees wrap made especially for bread.

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Bee’s Wrap actually came up a ways back in the comments on this post. We were talking about how to bring more reusables in the kitchen, and the issue of how to keep bread fresh without a plastic bag came up. Someone had heard of this stuff called Bee’s Wrap, but I’d never really seen it in person.

DSC_0045So far, I love it. It’s coated in beeswax, so you can wrap it around a loaf and it stays closed. I’m also a fan of having beeswax around in any form, so I do end up sneaking deep inhales with my face in the Bee’s Wrap. Mostly (like my reusable jars and cloth napkins and stainless steel straws) I love it because it’s beautiful.

There are all sorts of reasons to trade out disposable things in the kitchen for their more long-lasting reusable counterparts. But in the end, it’s the beauty of it all that makes me really want to make the switch. And the more small gifts I can give to the kitchen, the more I actually want to be there.

I’ve worked with Mighty Nest before, and I’m so happy to have them as a site sponsor. This year, they’ve launched the Mighty Nest for Schools Program, where 15% of your purchase can go to your school. Here’s a little more information about the program:

Introducing MightyNest for Schools,  a unique internet fundraiser that helps families lead a healthier lifestyle alongside raising money for their school. The way the program works is straightforward: schools earn 15% of every purchase made by school supporters on MightyNest.com. MightyNest for Schools an every day fundraiser that’s easy to run with with web-based communications tools and blends effortlessly with existing fundraising programs.  Parents shop at their leisure online and products are delivered right to their door. School involvement is minimal – just 5-6 hours of work spread over the school year could easily yield $1500. The team at Mightynest provides a steady flow of thought provoking content in the form of blog posts, newsletters, and contests to keep parents informed and involved throughout the year. The company carries over 1000 high quality, well researched, durable products for home and family including safe water bottles and eco-friendly, waste-free lunch gear, kitchen essentials, cleaning and personal care. Getting started is as easy as putting in your school’s zip code and providing an email address. For more information go to www.mightynest.com

Mighty Nest has offered to give away nine Kilner Jars and a Bees Wrap Bread Wrap. All you have to do to enter is to take the pledge to give one beautiful gift to your kitchen this week. It could be anything–flowers, a print on the wall, a dish towel you love… really anything. Just take the pledge and you’ll be entered to win, and you could win $100 for your local school, too. I’d love to hear what you give to your kitchen, if you want to tell us in the comments (but a comment isn’t required to enter). I’ll pick the winner on Friday, March 28.

 

 

Comments

  2. such a cool idea, thank you!
    i’d like to gift my kitchen a lovely springy new cookbook. i’m not sure which one yet though!

  3. If I could give my kitchen any gift this week it would be new tile flooring – in some color that would pop. As it is, I broke my ankle last week so that won’t be happening. Instead, the gift I could give my kitchen is some new kitchen towels – mine are pretty pathetic.
    (thanks so much for sponsoring this!)

  5. I have a tight budget, so I can’t buy a beautiful thing but I will fill its small space with delicious smells of from-scratch food.

  6. Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to replace plastic containers in my kitchen with glass jars, such as the ones you’ve posted about from Kilner (though I must say I’m not thrilled that they’re made in China! Sorry!!). However, I’ve come across a problem: the opening at the top of any of the jars, even the larger ones, is not quite big enough for me to easily use a 1-cup measuring cup, or even a 1/2-cup one, without having flour spill all over the place. Does anyone have a better suggestion? Thanks!

  8. I am hoping to sew and then print some dish towels in the next week or so. That is,my spring gift to me and my kitchen. Hopefully my dishwasher -aka the boyfriend – will like them too.

  11. My tiny kitchen doesn’t have much room for physical gifts – so I am going to make sure to play music in it every time I wash dishes this week, and to fill it with lovely sights and scents from baking (and I will even clean up after myself, so that it stays looking lovely, instead of cluttered!).

  14. I have some new tin baskets that I’m going to hang on the kitchen wall this weekend. Looking forward to getting organized.

  15. There are new kitchen towels in my future. There are some well-worn ones that are about to be demoted to the cleaning rag pile, and some brightly colored new ones will help convince me that spring really is about to arrive 🙂

  17. I’ve been looking for a reason to buy daffodils! I love to fill my kitchen and dining room with their sunny disposition.

  19. I just gifted my kitchen a beautiful Emile Henry clay pot (for baking bread in ala Ken Forkish’s Flour Water Salt Yeast). It hasn’t found a home in a cabinet, because I still need to do some of that springtime organizing. So it sits on my stove top beautiful red next to my shiny tea kettle and makes me happy each time I come into the kitchen.

  20. I pledge to give my kitchen the beautiful sound of my little girls’ laughter as we make bread together this week. My daughters’ spring break starts this afternoon and I’m counting down the hours!

  21. My kitchen’s gift this week is space. I need to unpack all the cardboard boxes in the middle of the room and put it all away. lol

  22. Hi!! I’m relatively new here – reading and loving, but not commenting! I love your blog and your cookbook!! This is such a great giveaway. I ordered some bulbs last fall, but never planted them. 🙁 This is the perfect push I’ve been waiting for to just plant them in pots and put them all around my kitchen! Thanks for the motivation/inspiration. 🙂

  25. I just bought a new linen apron after wanting it for 2 years. It’s lovely. And I’m going to put my bunny linen tea towel to good use. Because really, what am I saving it for? I’d like to live by these words: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ William Morris

  27. I’ve really let my beautiful sunny walk-in pantry (possibly my favorite room in the house) go to shambles recently, so I’ll gift my kitchen (and myself) with a more organized, beautiful, and clean pantry!

  28. Music, the sounds of “A Prairie Home Companion” tomorrow night, and vacuumed and mopped floors. I’m going to plant wheatgrass and put that in my window so I can see something green and alive while washing dishes and waiting for our snow to melt…one day.

  30. My kitchen will be a gift this week as I purchase my first home. I look forward to many years spent in my kitchen and hope to see it as a gift each day.

  31. What a lovely idea!
    Hmmm, it’s a toss up between clearing off the counters (convenient flat surface= piles) and/or cleaning the stove top. (I would add cleaning the oven, but I don’t think it’s going to be warm enough this weekend and the windows REALLY need to be open for that task!)
    And may I just say that I wish my pantry looked half as organized as yours!

  32. i’ve been dreaming of a beautiful wooden spoon that i saw recently at our local kitchen store downtown… the kind with a long skinny handle and a perfect circle for the spoon. i think i will bring it home. thanks for the chance!

  33. I just got a shiny new stainless box grater – it’s the little things that make us happy, isn’t it? Believe I’ll grate some mozzarella and give my kitchen the gift of the smell of homemade pizza!

  35. We are remodeling, so I am so lucky to gift my kitchen beautiful new cabinets and granite countertops this week! Im so excited!

  36. Our kitchen is oh so small and oh so inefficient. As much as we want to redo it, we just can’t right now. But I’ve been cleaning and tossing and reorganizing. The one thing I could do pre-rehab is remake the buffet that is in there. I want to paint it and add a countertop and stools. Our house is becoming a gathering place for my son’s friends and I want to encourage them to enter this family space.

  37. A couple of months ago, I made some spoon butter (bee’s wax and coconut oil) and need to use it on the ‘other’ side of my hardwood cutting board.

    Alana-for your files, I (still) recommend Freedom Filer. We splurged for the one that is already assembled and it was ready to use out of the box.

  40. oh! I gave my kitchen a gift today! I was so busy, but I took the time tosew it a new hanging hand towel – in gingham with a funky little scrap of folklore people and calico.

    I LOVE this fundraiser. Just met with another mom this morning to plan a sub fundraiser. Will have to propose the mightynest one, too.

  42. The gift is soft pink tulips, a clean floor, and the Stone Soup Arts Alliance sharing food,work, and conversation as we do every week.

  44. This week my oldest (he’s 4) and I are making dozens and dozens of scones for a friend’s bridal shower. I think our kitchen needs a cake pedestal filled with a few scones just for us!

  47. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this post. Always thought I was the only one who gets organization envy! Thanks for sharing… My pledge will be to add some fresh spring flowers to the kitchen today.

  48. I just gave my kitchen (and my husband) the gift of a little stoneware juicer that I painted myself. It’s so pretty it has to live out on the windowsill!

  49. I’m going to clean out my refrigerator…it always make me feel better
    when the far reaches have been emptied of forgotten leftovers and the shelves and drawers are clear of crumbs and spills.

  50. Today is my fifth wedding anniversary and my baby will be one in a month. My kitchen has pulled us through this first year of parenthood with lots of grunt work but not much love. This week I am committing myself simply to trying to give it cleanliness each evening. Not order, but dishes done, garbages out, and a clean countertop to make a spot of tea.

  51. 2 weeks ago, I tackled the walls, outsides of the cupboards (even on top!), pulled out the stove and cleaned behind it, re-caulked the backsplash. This week, I will give my kitchen the gift of cleaning out the “baking corner”. Thanks for the motivation.

  52. Oh my, it’s as if you were writing everything I was thinking today! I’m going to adopt your term “aspirational organizer” and proudly wear it as a badge from now on. It sounds so positive and professional, and intentional 🙂 I’m going to gift my kitchen with a framed enlargement of one or more of my million gorgeous photos of rainbow-inspired food! Thank you Alana, for being such an ongoing source of inspiration!

  54. I’m going to clean out that one drawer that was supposed to be for parchment paper/tin foil, etc, and instead became that cluttered catch-all drawer that makes me cringe every time I look at it.

    My husband and I are expecting our first baby in a few weeks (!!!) and I am feeling desperately motivated to organize everything before our new little boy gets here (and I have a “to do” list taped to my cupboard that is getting longer instead of shorter). It can definitely feel overwhelming! Thanks for the inspiration and camaraderie…it’s nice to know others will be working on projects this week, too.

    Also, I have never heard of bees wrap, but I’m very interested because I make all of our household bread (at least 3x/week), and I’m always looking for a better way to keep it!

  55. Kitchen goodies are my favorite things! I get excited over new mason jars and wooden spoons, etc. In home magazines, the kitchen features are what I look at first. And I’ve actually been watching my daffodils every day just waiting to have enough to put on my table. 🙂
    Thanks for the opportunity to win more fun things!!

  56. My kitchen is going to get a new, small spatula this week. I’m also trying to clean out a drawer (or a shelf) every week. Time for a bit of kitchen drawer decluttering this week. I love looking in a drawer and immediately finding the cooking utensil I’m looking for!

  57. My gift to my kitchen this week is going to be to clean it really well (even the places that usually get ignored) and organize. If I get that done, my gift to myself will be some spring flowers.

  58. I think a clean kitchen is wonderful and inspires me to dirty it up again making delicious food for my family. So I’m going to gift my kitchen some spring-smelling natural cleaning products and get to work!

  59. This is the time of year when we have company for 3 months straight (everyone wants to ski) so the gift for my kitchen is the small snatches of time that my daughter, husband and I share together between company. Last night while 80s music played in the background made elk chili and apple pie from scratch. Dinner didn’t happen until after 8 and that was okay.

  60. -discard the old and ugly
    -scrub down the counters
    -organize the pantry
    -..
    ..Hum… beauty despite the clutter? or perhaps with it!
    Like many above I thought oh well a good cleaning would be a great gift. But then your words sunk in …despite the clutter…
    a kitchen draws much of its beauty from it’s life, it’s never really in order, it’ can’t be not if it’s used! So what could make mine more beautiful? There are always dishes to be done in the sink, food hafeway made on the counter, toys on the floor, food that hasn’t quite made it into the labled jars in the pantry…I don’t really need any more stuff…
    Presence : be there, use it, live in it.
    Unfortunetly, I’m bedridden this week as my back is out, so presence part will be hard. (except for asperashionably of course)
    Care:I too have a love for reusable objets in the kitchen but if we don’t care for them then it’s as if we were wasting them too!!!
    What I can do is care for my kitchen by polishing up all my wooden utensils!!! I know I will be so happy to come back to my favorit space and find my friends ready to get messy again! Sitting in bed I will polish and dream…

  61. I’m pulling out an old piece of fabric – all strawberries and vines and pale yellow on white – will make new kitchen 1/2 curtains so the sun will flood the tiny kitchen and warm the strawberries in the new curtains. Spring is at least one new spring-ish item in each room – dining room will have some forsythia branches being forced into bloom on the table and hyacinth bulbs in small stone filled pots on the two sunny windowsills. Bedrooms will have winter curtains taken down so afternoon sun can now fill the rooms – and bookcases emptied of old and not-to-be-reread books, they will sit on my Main St. doorstep in a box labeled “FREE SPRING GIFTS”… Yes spring has begun.

  62. I think I will just clean it. Getting the surfaces cleared off and the gunk off the cabinet faces makes me feel much better about the space. Flowers sure don’t hurt either.

  63. A good old “we’re moving and downsizing” purge lol You’d think after moving overseas and back we’d learn to keep it simple by now…but nope! It’s really liberating to only keep what you actually use. Now we have tons of counter and much prized cupboard space again, I love it!

  64. I like this idea. I think…a bread box for our kitchen. I make my own but store it in tupperware and it goes moldy so fast! Maybe better storage might help

    • Victoria, I have a metal breadbox, and bread wrapped in bees wrap, then in the breadbox seems to be working pretty well. I think moisture gets stuck in the tupperware and it speeds mold along! Or if you eat lots of your bread as toast, you can make one loaf just for that, slice it up, and freeze it.

  65. I pledge to make new napkins from a beautiful Japanese fabric that has been sitting in my stash for quite a while and has little bunnies on it. Just in time for Easter 🙂

  66. A centerpiece. As in pull out a table runner from the drawer, get a wooden serving plate, and put something (like fruit) in it. Maybe we will even use the spring placemats!

  68. I just gifted my kitchen with saurkraut for the first time (thank you for the recipe!), but I think for this week I will visit a thrift store to buy some sheets that I can make re-useable napkins from. You can never have too many of these! 🙂

  69. I’m giving my kitchen the gift of fresh flowers and clean dishes. The former to replace the formerly lovely daffodils that are now shriveling, and the latter a new habit I’m trying to establish so dishes get done right away instead of piling up and filling the counter, waiting for a marathon dishwashing session. 🙂

  70. Oh this post makes me so happy! When you dreamed that “Pinterest was real,” I laughed out loud!!!! I’m going to gift my kitchen with music. I spend so much time there and my little boys love music. Time to move the iPod speakers to the kitchen!!!

    • Yes, Jen! We were using an old boom box (I feel like I’m dating myself by using that term) that was clunky, hard to access, and had no iPod hookup. We just got a new little under-shelf stereo for the kitchen a few months ago, and it transformed the kitchen entirely. Just making it easy to listen to music makes a HUGE difference.

  71. My 6 yr old cousin and I spent the morning making a set if salt dough vases for the kitchen counter. We are desperately trying to encourage spring- and the wildflowers that come with it!

  72. Beautiful new bookends to (hopefully) keep my cookbooks more organized. No more moving piles around to find the one I want!

  74. I am going to finally wash those dirty walls so their vintage charm shines through! They are amazingly intact 1940’s plastic tiles–pretty rare to find anymore.

  76. I entered on Friday but came back again today….I just gave my kitchen a much needed “spring cleaning”!! Thanks for he chance to win!

  77. I won’t be gifting to my personal kitchen, but I started a cooking club about a month ago at the high school where I work. We only have two stove burners to work with and no oven or microwave, but the students love it! Since we are an inner city school, I pay for all supplies out of my own pocket. This week, I will gift new wooden spoons to the kitchen as we have been using table spoons! The club is getting so big that we can hardly fit in our tiny kitchen space, but there is still room at the table for everyone!

  78. Complete: I made cloth napkins out of an old linen tablecloth this past weekend. It felt really good to start and finish a project that was on my mind for a while. Not a project in the kitchen – but to use with the delicious food created there. 🙂

    In progress: I’m starting to switch over my spice jars to the small canning jars. They are much easier to refill with bulk spices and to scoop out spices with measuring spoons.

    To do: make the Masala Chai concentrate recipe again from the Beauty That Moves Hibernate workshop. So yummy and it makes the kitchen smell amazing.

    • I love the progress of this list 🙂 And yes, I use small canning jars for my herbs, and we’ve painted the lids with chalkboard paint. I keep them all in a drawer so I can see them from above- it works really well.

  79. I’m going to give my kitchen the gift of efficiency by removing any items that don’t get used weekly, or at least seasonally. No need to store tools that don’t pull their weight.

  81. I love organizing!
    I am in the process of spring cleaning my kitchen – labeling, consolidating and passing along what we don’t use
    xoxox

  82. Looks like I just found the perfect excuse to buy those daffodils that are constantly tempting me at the entrance of the grocery store.

    • Yes! That’s my favorite thing about the responses to this post- so many daffodils bought! I caved in and bought some myself yesterday, inspired by all of you.

  85. I love this time of year and will give my kitchen daffodils and Easter towels and maybe a fresh baked French loaf. All my favorite spring things!

  86. I love your idea of house tidying/cleaning being like an Andy Goldsworthy piece… what a helpful perspective, thank you!

    In honor of springtime and the new Cosmos series, I just gave our kitchen a new dish towel with a Carl Sagan quote: If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

    Thank you again, again, again for your wonderful blog. xoxo

  87. I’m not sure it totally counts, because the gift wasn’t from me, but….last week I took a drive to visit my aunt and uncle, and they gave me my grandmother’s Wedgwood dishes, as well as two serving dishes made by my grandfather, who was a potter. It has made my cupboards much more beautiful, my tea every day much more special. It has made things crowded in the dish department, though, so I should probably give my kitchen the gift of getting rid of those old random coffee cups and blue plastic plates to make some room!

  88. My gift to my kitchen this week will be an organized tea cupboard. This (admittedly small) task is long overdue, but this pledge is the push I needed.

  89. My gift to my kitchen this week is deep cleaning out the corners.. It has gotten out of hand!!! Then some lovely spring like flowers. ^_^

  90. Our house has the ‘we’re moving messy crabbies’ right now. I need to give my poor neglected kitchen the gift of a scrubbed out sink, mopped floor, and some cleaned-out drawers.

  92. I LOVE these jars. I am currently working on organizing as much as possible in glass jars. Would especially like flours to be in glass. My grains are already organized, so I’m on my way. We are in the process of buying a new home and I am getting geared up to make it as cozy and user friendly as possible. Love the idea of new towels and flowers for spring.

  93. Oh my…I have all my dry goods in jars but they are not this nice. I love the ones with the seal! I am giving my kitchen some flowers for sure. I’ve been really into tulips lately. And a good scrub. Because the poor dear needs that. And she does so desperately need some new kitchen towels so we’ll see on that one.

  95. I am inspired by everyone who has already pledged to put a little love in their kitchen.

    I am going to clean out the junk draw. Then I should be able to find my washable chalkboard marker which I will use to put fresh labels on my empty spice jars. So I can move those spices from the little bags piled behind the stand mixer into to the appropriate jars.

  96. We just moved. The new kitchen has very little counter space. So, the love I’m gonna add to the kitchen is an island, so I have room to prepare our meals… Also, all the other things that go along with moving in – arranging and re-arranging, putting my knives and the framed recipe from my Oma on the wall… making it our own. 🙂

  97. The gift I gave my kitchen this week was to get out one of the hand towels that I use during Spring and Summer. It bright green with colorful flowers. I have to tell you I love your blog. I look forward to reading every post.

  100. My gift is that I continue to nag my husband unrelentingly to make progress on painting our kitchen cabinets and then the walls. (He’s out of work right now, so the nagging is permitted.) I can. not. wait. until we’re rid of that sea of builder oak!

  101. One of the best things I’ve done for me & my kitchen is to pull spices and dry goods out of the cabinets and into jars in plain sight. Beautiful and functional!

  102. I’m going to give it a good spring cleaning – and then put everything away where it should go. After that it’s getting a huge vase of flowers – we’ve had too much winter this year! I can’t wait to see color!

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