The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook: Everything You Need to Know About Setting Up and Cooking in the Most Ridiculously Small Kitchen in the World--Your Own [Paperback]

Justin Spring (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 14, 2006

If your cluttered small kitchen makes you dread cooking even the simplest meal, it’s time for you to reclaim that space—and your sanity!—with this practical and witty guide. Here you will learn how to:

*Purge your kitchen of unnecessary, space-hogging STUFF

* Maximize counter space

*Organize and streamline your kitchen for peak efficiency and easy cleanup

*Locate the best cooking equipment (and retailers) for small kitchens

*Re-think shopping, cooking, and storing food to suit your small-kitchen lifestyle

*Use ingenious creative shortcuts for small-space entertaining


Best of all, each of the book’s 100 recipes is designed for minimal space, time, and pots and pans. With no more than two burners and a toaster oven you can make easy breakfasts, fast soups, comfort food like Mom’s Sunday Pot Roast or Mole-Style Chili, big batch recipes for no-fuss entertaining, and even great desserts like Orange Marmalade Bread Pudding or Extreme (super-fast, super-chocolatey) Brownies.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A resourceful cook will tell you that almost anything (except perhaps, a 25-pound turkey) can be cooked in a small kitchen. But not every cook thinks such a feat is possible, and for him or her, this book will shed some very useful light. A Manhattan apartment-dweller and art historian, Spring lays out the basics of small-kitchen cookery: order, naturally, is of utmost importance. Think like a small-sailboat galley slave (the author grew up on a 36-foot catamaran where the kitchen consisted of a camp stove, ice chest and bucket) and optimize space, he says, by, for example, keeping dish cupboards and cutlery drawers as close as possible to the sink to create economy of motion while washing dishes. In chatty and fun prose, Spring covers every aspect of cooking in a small space, from stocking it with the right ingredients and tools (with suggestions of how much cutlery and utensils you need) to understanding which appliances are really necessary (toaster ovens can be terrific but aren't indispensable, while blenders can do the work of mixers and food processors, making them particularly valuable). Recipes are creative and well within the capabilities of basic cooks; they include Toaster-Oven Meatloaf and Sautéed Cutlets Marsala. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“In chatty and fun prose, Justin Spring covers every aspect of cooking in a small space.”

—Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First edition (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767920163
• ISBN-13: 978-0767920162
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #935,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Justin Spring is a New York based writer specializing in twentieth-century American art and culture. His biography SECRET HISTORIAN is a 2010 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a 2010 National Book Award Finalist, an Amazon Top 10 Biography of the Year, an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book for 2011,winner of the 2011 Lamda Literary Award in Biography; the winner of the 2011 Randy Shilts Prize in Non-Fiction from the Publishing Triangle; and winner of the 2011 Geoff Mains Non-Fiction Prize of the National Leather Association. It is also an ARTFORUM Top 10 of 2010 pick and a Top 10 Book of the Year for 2010 in the San Francisco Chronicle.

For a full review of SECRET HISTORIAN by Mark Harris in the New York Times Book Review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/books/review/Harris-t.html?_r=1&ref=bookreviews

For a feature on Justin Spring's discovery of the Steward Archive, by Patti Cohen in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/books/26secret.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Justin%20Spring&st=cse

For a slide show in the New York Times about the Steward Archive:
www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/.../20100726-secret.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of All Possible Worlds, March 28, 2006

By 

C. Byrne (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook: Everything You Need to Know About Setting Up and Cooking in the Most Ridiculously Small Kitchen in the World--Your Own (Paperback)

For those of us who choose to live in urban areas, it usually follows that we trade space for the excitement of city living. At the same time, the desire to have a warm, inviting kitchen even in a small space is natural--it's a hallmark of domesticity and comfort. Believe it or not, for many of us, the tiny kitchen is not where you make coffee, put take-out on plates or store sweaters in the oven. (All fairly common in NYC). The kitchen is the heart of the home. And even the smalled home needs that.

In his wonderful book, Justin Spring shows you how to make the most of even the tiniest kitchen with practical tips, great recipes and ideas about organization. (This is priceless advice even if you live in a mansion.) His gentle wit and terrific advice fill the book and make it a consistent pleasure. The drawings are great, too, and for its small size the book is beautifully designed...seems like there's a theme here.

Quite simply, Spring shows us that size doesn't matter. It's the intelligence, ingenuity and inventiveness that goes into the kitchen that guarantees what comes out--the warmth, care and great food that give even the tiniest kitchen a big and loving heart.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appreciated in Arctic Alaska, March 24, 2006

By 

Arctic Voice Earl (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook: Everything You Need to Know About Setting Up and Cooking in the Most Ridiculously Small Kitchen in the World--Your Own (Paperback)

We never have enough space in Arctic Alaska, and we sure like to eat, especially when it is super cold and dark outside.
So this book, and the cheerful, upbeat way it is written, should help us.
But as Spring points out early on, the book can help anyone who has to deal with a hot, crowded and rather claustrophobic kitchen area ("something like taking a berth on "Das Boot."
The man speaks from experience, and shares 100 recipes, successfully done in his 45-sq.ft. New York apartment kitchen. Included is a recipe developed for a 25-pound Alaska wild salmon, caught and sent by his sister from the far north.
He shares the limited space in his 500-sq.ft. apartment with several dogs, who often stake out key locations in the tiny kitchen. Stay tuned for reports on who wins that battle.
The book can help you clean and prep your kitchen, select the right appliances (he loves his toaster oven) and get rid of the clutter many of us accumulate in our kitchen.
So get this book and then stretch out and read it, but not in your tiny kitchen, especially if you have dogs.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and funny, March 16, 2006

By 

J.Z. "Drippy" (Sleepy Eye, Minn.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook: Everything You Need to Know About Setting Up and Cooking in the Most Ridiculously Small Kitchen in the World--Your Own (Paperback)

This is a gem of a book, suitable for anyone whose kitchen is smaller than ideal. In his humorous, easy-to-read manner Justin Spring provides numerous ways to get the most out of a tiny kitchen and entertain with ease.