Rogers Gary - Cooking in a small kitchen / Arthur Schwartz ; illustrated by Gary Rogers

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A four-star cooking guide that shows you how to cut loose like a cordon bleu chef, in a kitchen the size of a closet

Arthur Schwartz knows that you dont need a restaurant kitchen to cook like a four-star chef. In fact, Schwartz is a self-proclaimed small kitchen devotee, espousing the virtues of being able to keep a close eye on the stove or oven while chopping up the next ingredient.

Dont let cramped quarters hold you back from making a simple yet satisfying one-pot jambalaya, a Valentines dinner for two, or going all out with an herb-stuffed leg of lamb and risotto with wild mushrooms. Approachable recipes for Tuscan bean soup and Caribbean fudge pie will transport you on a delicious journey without having to take more than a few steps from oven to table. Schwartz leads you to culinary mastery with minimal space, low stress, and more than a few brilliant tricks.

With space-saving tips for getting multiple uses out of utensils and appliances, Cooking in a Small Kitchen will have you falling in love with your closet kitchen and cooking like a pro.

Picador Cookstr Classics is a series collaboration between Cookstr and Picador. It brings to the forefront some of the most beloved cookbooks of the last decades, with recipes and techniques that todays chefs continue to draw from again and again. Presenting these enduring titles in their original form, with the recipes and headnotes just as they were written decades ago, preserves a unique piece of food history while reminding us just how relevant these masterfully crafted cookbooks are to a new generation of home cooks. New forewords champion what made each Picador Cookstr Classic such an important cookbook when first published, and why each is well worth rediscovering.

For Brian,
Who will find at least a few of the family treasures here.

Arthur Schwartz was ahead of his time with the publication of Cooking in a Small Kitchen. This book is both practical and timeless, two of the qualities that I admire most in any cookbook. He addresses the issues of cooking in small kitchens and how to make them practical, enjoyable, and ultimately capable of producing delicious results.

Many cookbooks of the 70s and 80s flaunted recipes for festive occasions and entertaining that required an endless number of pots, pans, and equipment. The reality today is that people want to cook and nurture themselves deliciously and properly, and the best way to do this is to cook at home. Living spaces can often be more expensive than ever, so kitchens might be even smaller than before. As a result, organization and practicality are essential, as are recipes that can be cooked in one pot and dont require excessive lists of ingredients and tools.

While large gourmet kitchens might grace many lifestyle publications and websites, the reality is that most people dont have one. Unless you are cooking for many people, large gourmet kitchens can actually be impractical.

Cooking a delicious meal does not require an enormous space, a multitude of clutter-causing gadgets, nor a hundred steps. The key, as Arthur points out, is being organized and working methodically. The lists provided in this cookbook are extremely helpful. Kitchens need to be functional; my own kitchen was planned so that I can prep at the counter, turn around to my sink, and then back to my stove all in one fell swoop. Tools and equipment need to be chosen with common sense and according to the recipe and workspace. Food processors are wonderful but sometimes not necessary when the culinary task can be done more efficiently by hand.

There is a wonderful diverse selection of recipes in Arthurs cookbook that provide enough depth for someone cooking for one or two people but also for those looking to host a dinner party from a small, well-outfitted kitchen. The dry ingredients used in the recipes are well chosen and used throughout the cookbook, allowing the reader to understand how to create and use a well-stocked pantry in a small kitchen. The fresh ingredients are super fresh and bought right before preparation, so they dont require buying and storing in bulk. In addition, Arthur addresses the issue of cooking with only two burners. Although I thought this might seem impossible, his guidance and recipes assure the reader that it is in fact totally doable.

Bigger is often considered better these days, so kudos to Arthur for having addressed this issue before its time and supplying the reader with a more refreshing message that involves staying tight, organized, focused, and clean. The best chefs and home cooks execute their meals in this manner anyway. Cooking in a Small Kitchen is quite timely for todays lifestyle.

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

2018

The largest kitchen I have ever worked in was a luxurious twenty feet long by twelve feet wide and equipped with every conceivable modern convenience. I hated it.

It was beautiful to look at and had acres of counter space. But by the end of a day of cooking I had walked so many miles from the stove to the refrigerator, from the refrigerator to the vegetable cleaning sink, from the sink to the baking center, from the baking center to the chopping block, and from the chopping block back to the stove, that my feet were numb with pain.

I suppose as a reaction to this inconveniently large room, I decided that in the next kitchen I had, a more modest ten-by-ten affair open to a dining area, I would hone down my work space to a neat little square with the refrigerator behind me, the stove in front of me, the sink and a short length of counter to the left, and a chopping area to the right. I wasnt using the whole room, but it fulfilled rather demanding needs and I never had to move from one spot.

This seems to me the best of all possible kitchen arrangements and, as a city dweller, probably the one and only perfect kitchen I will ever be lucky enough to have. The city kitchens I am familiar with, even those that are adequately equipped, are cramped at best. You have to balance the chopping board on the edge of the sink, and too bad if you have to rinse a plate. Theres no place to set down a fork, much less a pot lid. And if you arent careful, you could step in the garbage while just turning around.

When the city kitchen is bad, it is really bad. The landlords call them kitchenettes. You laugh at the pretension and eat out a lotsecure in the excuse that your kitchen is too small to cook inand you never invite anyone to dinner.

There are, to be sure, more than a few logistical problems when cooking in a kitchen the size of a closet. But youd be surprised how organization, common sense, and a desire to eat well can conspire to produce a delicious, even sophisticated, meal. The small size of your kitchen actually dictates a few of the basic rules of good, basic cooking and sensible eating. Youll have to start each recipe well organized. You must rely mostly on fresh ingredients because you havent much room to store food. Your dishes must be fairly simple because theres no storage space for a lot of pots, pans, serving pieces, or tableware. Often youll have to cook in one pot. And, you have to concentrate on three-course menus because you cant cook too many dishes at once on your small range.