how oxo saved my kitchen

I've been in a bit of a declutter/organize/sort/purge mode this week. As I'm putting the final touches on my business, I'm also trying to make sure my office is moving in the direction of a room that inspires me. We have a ways to go. But I have made progress and found additional inspiration from the recent Oprah episode about the "Clean Up Your Messy House Tour" and the cute clutterbuggies. So I'm trying to use some of their tips (not that these are revelatory or anything, but sometimes practicality escapes our best intentions) and set aside a small amount of time each day to deal with a little project in there. It's going well! But more on that later.

For now, I'm reminded of the one room that works pretty darned well in my home: my kitchen. I love cooking and I love kitchen gear. (I may have a little obsession with Penzey's spices too.) And it's not perfect but by all accounts, I know where to find things and I feel like everything has a place.

Last fall, I started investing (and I do not use that term lightly) in some better storage for the things in my pantry. I fell in love with these OXO Pop Storage Containers and picked up a few to try them out. Then a few more. Then even a few more after that. Before you knew it, I had thrown out a bunch of old staples and sorted the rest into the proper sized containers. Like Oprah's guy recommended, I got the similar items stored together - not 4 kinds of rice spread between 2 cabinets. DUH! My cabinets looked beautiful AND I'd managed to "find" a bunch of available space while I was at it.

Now my 4 kinds of sugar have a home (bakers sugar, powdered sugar, coarse sprinkling sugar and this nifty powdery stuff that I brought back from Switzerland...my kind of souvenir!); the flour doesn't go all over the place when I open it up; crystallized ginger doesn't turn into little ginger rocks; the extra spice bags all cram in one tall container waiting to refill their glass jar friends. Pretty frickin' slick.

But I'll warn you: the price point isn't for the faint of heart. I watched diligently for sales and the lowest prices. Crate and Barrel seems to have the best everyday prices, Cooks of Crocus Hill and Sur La Table both put them on sale for 20% off, and although limited, Williams-Sonoma carries them as well making for an overall great assortment and selection. I'm considering more. I'm also considering a second mortgage to help pay for them. Sigh.

The containers themselves are cool - the top fits snugly so you don't have stale cereal or rock hard brown sugar. When they're sealed, they are stackable to the moon. And the majority of the container is dishwasher safe, just a twist to get the top apart and away you go. So simple all around.

Loft living means being creative with your square footage, a lesson I'm learning and relearning on a daily basis. Trying to be more green, I like to buy things in bulk when I can. Worthwhile storage solutions are key. I must say that stumbling on these nifty containers really has helped make my life a little easier to manage. And who can't use a little of that in their world?

Now back to my office...

Breville Juice Fountain Elite: juicy fresh happiness

One of the coolest new toys in my loft is my juicer. Just purchased from Williams-Sonoma last week, I have been experimenting like a woman possessed.

This all started a month or so ago when I was detoxing myself. Entire month of January without wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, red meat. Spending time on Oprah.com, as I love to do, I saw her "green drink" assumably concocted by Dr. Oz. Now, there is a lot of discussion going on in her boards about what the ingredients really are (I'm going with the above link) and whether or not they meant juicer instead of blender (they did). Either way, I just thought the thing looked so damned delicious I wanted to try it.

Then inspiration struck again when I visited Chicago a few weeks ago. In a great little breakfast joint, I had their apple/carrot/celery juice. I credit it solely with curing my first post-detox hangover.

Thusly inspired, I did a ton of online comparison shopping and then finally bought the beast. Then I started researching a little bit more on organic fruits and veggies - which were the most important to buy vs. which I could get away with being conventionally grown. (Here's a great resource for that information.) And I also have a little ace up my sleeve: across the street from our building sits a St. Paul institution. Which usually frightens me. See, Eisenberg's Market has been selling groceries and produce downtown for decades. But today, they tend towards "scratch and dent" or stuff that's nearing its expiration, all of which is trucked in daily from SuperTarget and other local grocery stores. Trust me, I hear those bloody refrigerated trucks unloading their goods in the wee hours of the morning. But one store's almost-expired organic produce is a girl's juicing goldmine.

I'm careful to wash everything with plain water and scrub things like carrots and celery with a stiff brush. This week I've tried:

• 2 apples + 2 celery stalks + 4 skinny carrots + 3/4" ginger (2 servings)
• 1 ruby red grapefruit + 1 thick pineapple spear + 1 t. Penzey's vanilla sugar
• 2 apples + 2 skinny carrots + 1 celery stalk (1 serving)

I also picked up a pretty book called "The Top 100 Juices" and can't wait to try out a couple of those recipes as well. But next, Oprah's drink is on my list. And let's not kid ourselves, I have a watermelon margarita on my mind too. Because detox is over, people.

Green Tip: The resulting pulp goes right into a ziploc in my fridge (with all my other organic matter) and added to my mom's compost pile. Which then becomes happy fertilizer in her garden. Which will grow beautiful tomatoes (and other items) which then I will steal in the middle of the night in July. Shhhh.