"kitchen remodeling" news and stories

Us food folks love the kitchen. A place where delicious meals are prepared and then consumed? It's naturally our favorite room in the home. So when it comes time to replace those tired countertops, rusty plumbing or appliances on the fritz, our bellies drive us to open our wallets for the most lavish, extravagant remodel.

Keeping us in check, though, are our friends over at ShelterPop, who took the advice of some handy, thrifty designers on how remodeling money should, or more importantly, should not be spent. Rather than falling for trends, these experts encourage homeowners to "recycle consciously, refine gradually and regret minimally."


Head over to ShelterPop to find out which five kitchen trends you should avoid, so you can dine comfortably in your redone kitchen five years from now, guilt-free (and with enough money for dinner).

• Instead of lettuce, try some hearty, leafy vegetables.
• These contractors not only remodel your kitchen, they'll cook you a meal.
• Right now, people running in tomorrow's Boston Marathon are probably eating a lot of carbs.
• The 2007/08 Zagat Guide to Boston restaurants has a new look.
• It's cookie time for Boston Red Sox fans.
• This week's recipes: Fresh Fruit Tart, Pan-Broiled Salmon, String Cheese and Avocado Salad, Lemony Oven-Roasted Potatoes, and Chicken Sausage, Mushroom, and Raisin Risotto.

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.