What do you eat with no kitchen?

In appreciation of all of you who have been clicking on ads, I'm going to make an effort to be a better blogger. I'll try. No promises. Less cell phone pictures, better quality photos, maybe even better thought out posts. Again, no promises. This is my first official attempt at being a better blogger. I've found some new blogs that I've enjoyed reading so I've been inspired.


During this kitchen remodel, people keep asking me, "So, you've been eating out a lot?" The answer is, not really as much as you might expect. Firstly, the husband and I have had a fair amount of travel/social plans (I owe a blog post about my/our week in Chicago!) so haven't been at home as much, and secondly, it's pretty easy to throw some lettuce on a plate with precooked chicken and salad dressing. As regular blog readers know, I love to cook, so it has been hard to give that up during this ordeal. However, I've improvised a few times with good results.

Yesterday evening I had a lady friend stop by for a glass of wine on the back deck. She said she wasn't extremely hungry, so while normally cutting vegetables up and making homemade ranch dressing is no problem, it's a huge problem when you have no kitchen. Instead, I had the great idea of doing a little wine pairing plate. But once I gathered everything (I only had to buy goat cheese, a nectarine, salami and crackers for this) I realized it wouldn't all fit on a paper plate. And I don't want to wash a dish in my bathtub. Solution: plastic wrap.

But yes, that is plywood below the plate. And yes that is a paper plate with crackers on it. And yes, there are still tools around...

Specifically shop vac attachments.

Needless to say, we've been eating pretty good even without a kitchen to work in. I'm glad though, that it should be about two more weeks without the kitchen. I'm going to have to order another piece of granite (arg!) and pick grout tonight. Maybe I'll just tell myself I've got three more weeks to go, just in case.