I have a love/hate relationship with the depiction of Other People's Kitchens in the mainstream food media. On one hand, it's a special kind of porn for the cooking-obsessed. I drool over bookshelves that hold hundreds of cookbooks; long windows over the sink that seem to always look out on a verdant garden or stunning water view; drawers to hold everything, from spices to an Alton Brown-worthy collection of knives to small appliances to wine; antique finds, food art from "friends," appliances that each cost more than my mortgage. And always, always the hood, the pot rack, the artfully-selected counter stools.

I think I am not alone among food bloggers. I do not yet have my showplace kitchen. When I was house-shopping four years ago, I looked first at the kitchen space and imagined such great things. My husband and I (then newly engaged and, just for kicks, expecting a baby) got in our first huge fight when I fell in love with a farmhouse - with a huge, high-ceilinged farmhouse kitchen - that was impractical in every other way. In the house that we eventually chose, the kitchen worked when we moved in. We painted the cupboards and cleaned the floor, deciding that our very slow remodeling would end in this most important room.

Our kitchen re-do is still a long way off; we've only completed two rooms in four years. So I must endure 1980s linoleum (glued indelicately over the original pine floors), a chimney that hasn't been used for the house's original cooking stove in decades, ancient drawers that moult wood shavings onto my casserole dishes below, a warped shelf that I've painted bright turquoise blue so it looks purposeful.

Yet our kitchen is still the heart of our home, as it is for so many other good cooks and gourmands who have not yet come into the riches they so deserve, the riches that will fund a fabulous kitchen makeover one day. So it occurred to me that this is something to celebrate. Real kitchens, in rented apartments or fixer-uppers or "starter homes" or entry-level condos. The ones that you live and cook in.

The food section for your local newspaper isn't lighting up your voicemail asking to do a four-page center photo spread of your real kitchen. But we will. Over the next several months, I'll be doing an occasional series in which I go into real homes of real food bloggers, local chefs and Slashfood readers, photographing them in their (non-showplace) element. I'll let y'all clean up first, of course, but my aim is to highlight the beauty in what hasn't been designed by a renowned chef or kitchen expert, that didn't cost upwards of 50 large. In a few minutes, I'm headed to the nearby home of Je Mange la Ville, who has graciously permitted me to experiment on her kitchen with my newest camera lens.

If you'd like to participate in our Real Kitchens project, and live in Oregon, Washington, or Los Angeles, leave a comment to this post or send in a tip. If you live elsewhere, well, you can ask and, depending on our upcoming travel plans and new blogger hires, we may be able to accomodate you and your beautiful (in its own way) kitchen.