Organization and shelves and hanging files (follow-up post)

I found out that bizarrely - at least to me - there are TWO different companies in Britain making basically big plastic storage tubs with latches that are designed to hold hanging files inside them (Banker's Box and Really Useful Box, specifically)! Bizarrely because there don't seem to be ANY other big plastic bins with this feature, globally, so it seems odd that they're concentrated there. I guess there must be an intense lingering attachment to hanging files there or something. We ended up ordering one of those - from Germany, because Brexit - , because we'll only need one. But we're also gonna get a fireproof bag for, like, the MOST important documents, I guess.

Since reorganizing the pantry during Wax's last days off, I continued to do some stuff in the kitchen while she had to work:

• I put a sideways balsa wood magazine holder next to the microwave, and it acts as a combined holder for the kitchen appliance manuals (always have to consult them when using the broiler and every fucking time we have to reset the clocks after the power goes out, because the shitty oven has the STUPIDEST clock setting method ever) and bookend for a couple of frequently-used cookbooks. Combined, these things are able to NEATLY fill the space next to the microwave between the top and bottom parts of the china hutch, where before there was an untidy pile of stuff crammed in there to prevent cats from trying to tunnel behind the microwave. The fact that it halfway fills the middle bit of the hutch is basically irresistable to cats, if it looks like there's an entryway next to it.



• Reorganized the spices so that now Wax can reach the seasoning blends and the oregano and basil (the only two spices kept in big jars instead of little ones) and only the whole spices are on the top shelf.



• Reorganized the china hutch further and managed to fit all the rest of our serving dishes including bigly problematic ones: the antique 19th c. Bohemian glass candy dish and the footed ceramic fruit bowl, which have been too large to fit in all kinds of places in the past and caused a bunch of headaches.



• Emptied, cleaned, and then reorganized the kitchen drawers and the corner carousel cabinet. Threw out maybe... 7? overly worn-down plastic cuttingboards. Fell down a rabbithole of cuttingboard research and ordered two new ones. Moved cuttingboard storage from a drawer to the narrow cabinet nearest the stove, so it now also contains serving trays and the big glass stovetop protectors that we use to cover hot burners to prevent any more cats-cooking-their-little-feet incidents (Snookums did this once years ago and Anubis has done it multiple times before moving in with us).



• Went on a research voyage about multiple-temp electric kettles and eventually ordered a Zwilling Enfinigy Kettle Pro. I don't think I've ever opened such a high-end appliance before. The manual is like, graphic designed... by a graphic designer who was actually GOOD. And not only that, the manual has obviously been translated professionally, by a translator who knew what they were doing??? You can barely even tell that it was originally written in German! And that isn't due to an error, just like... one of those things.
  
  There are well-reviewed, fairly reliable programmable/multi temp kettles under 100 USD or euros, but after winnowing down ones that were available from actually Finnish webshops¹, I skipped over the two cheapest ones due to (1) bad button placement where they looked like they were sure to get nasty gunky and be very hard to clean on the Cuisinart PerfecTemp and (2) a ton of reviews about how the alarm noise made by the Bosch Styline is like, the worst sound they've ever heard and makes it practically unusable.
  
  So anyway, this kettle cost like 140 bucks, but the electric kettle is likely the single most-used electric appliance in our house, and I genuinely, really love oolong and sencha (which are supposed to be brewed at lower temperatures), so we were like "Wait, actually that IS worth it" when I suddenly noticed that our kettle was looking extremely worn out. It looks like a piece of the set from one of the new Star Trek tv shows and it's amazing - it's so heavy and solid, so insulated that the outside doesn't get hot, it doesn't dribble at all... I'm extremely delighted and have drunk more sencha this week than any month in the last year probably, and yeah, I can tell the difference.



• Took the plastic lid bits off the Kenwood Chef and washed and disinfected some parts of it for the first time ever. Unlike the KitchenAid I grew up with, though, you can't actually get all the gunk out of its crevices without taking it apart. And also ABS plastic is kinda shitty and turns yellow with age? I get that this is keeping costs down etc etc, but it really is extremely dinky-feeling to someone who grew up with a KitchenAid. We don't need a KitchenAid - in fact we don't really even use the Chef. Wax is our chief baker since she got obsessed with French-trained Korean and Japanese pastry chef channels on Youtube and bought a lot of cake-making supplies a few years ago; and she prefers a hand-mixer. She doesn't want to get rid of the Chef, though, because there's still like one thing it's useful for, she said, though I don't remember what it was. You can't even cream butter in it, because the bowl and whisk are shaped so that they don't meet properly and the butter just doesn't get creamed. It's annoying how big and heavy it is though, given how we basically never use it.



• Dusted the highest up bits on top of the cabinets and the side/back top of the exhaust pipe that connects our hood to the chimney. And you know what? A corrugated stainless exhaust pipe is basically impossible to dust! As you know, Bob, kitchen dust is infused with moisture and oil from the air, which is why instead of a dry, light coating that can be brushed off, it forms a sticky layer on things. And the corrugated pipe has crevices. From the corrugation. Turns out that was a bad idea! I knew it didn't dust EASILY, but I always figured if I just stood up on a stool and attacked it properly, it would be fine. Well... it wasn't. I guess it will have to be scrubbed off with like... a brush and dishsoap probably, but that's not fun because there are open shelves and butcherblock under it... and it's cylindrical... yeah.

1. It's SO much hassle ordering from outside Finland, and so much easier to order from inside Finland where the direct bank payments and all the registered parcel tracking services are all standard, that it's totally worth hunting around for a long time trying to find a domestic option for nearly anything you want. This COULD be the case for parcels from Sweden and Denmark as well, because they actually have all the same bank systems and in fact many of the same actual banks and a bunch of the same delivery services; but Swedes and Danes are just VERY VERY BAD at webshop and mostly don't even offer to ship to neighboring Nordic countries, among the other ways their webshops are so much worse than Finnish ones. Dutch webshops are MILES better, but they don't share our payment processors and shipping companies, so they are not quite as easy to use, although they are way more customer friendly.