Welcome to the adventures of shelf install in the kitchen! This post was almost titled “How to break an easy, no-explanation-necessary project down into several illustrated steps.”

As you can see I’m not very good at taking actual [right] before pictures. The above left image of the sink is almost 4 years old (I can’t believe we’ve been here that long!), and the image on the right is about 2 years old. But, they both serve to illustrate the shelving issues in the kitchen. By the sink, there isn’t a convenient, sturdy place to store soap. When the dish rack gets full it’s impossible to reach soap all the way over on the little counter to the right. By the stove, the shelf installed by a previous tenant is useless—anything placed there gets covered in grease and out of reach. In order to keep things at hand, they have to occupy space on the tiny counter space to the left of the stove. In the new configuration, this space become usable as a working countertop.

We’re all breathing easier without the nasty “look-at-me!” brackets of the old shelf, aren’t we?

I started this project Halloween weekend, first shopping for lumber and a mahogany-colored stain to match the existing un-painted wood in the kitchen. While our neighbors were applying glitter to their fairy wings, I was staining pine planks out back. Fortunately I managed to avoid getting any glitter stuck in the wet stain. This was my first time staining anything by myself, so I did my homework. Step 1: ask a random man in the stain aisle (no, not a store employee) if one should use a regular paint brush. The man will surely tell you that you’d be better off using a rag. It is best to use a rag to which you have no great attachment. Later, you will throw this rag in the trash because it will be impossible to clean; according to the label on the little tin of stain, it could even spontaneously catch fire if not disposed of properly. Step 2: phone your father (any knowledgeable, experienced stainer in the family will do) and share an in-depth discussion on the application of stain with said rag. He will go into detail about the instructions on the side of the stain can, placing emphasis on the importance of removing excess stain and avoiding drips for fear of an uneven finish. Step 3: don a pair of latex gloves, or similar, and get cracking. Allow the wood to dry over night.

Now that the wood is dry and you are satisfied with the color, it’s time to get out the tool box. You’ll want to mount the L-brackets before attempting to attach the shelf to the wall, unless you happen to be an octopus. For the shelf above the sink, the positioning of the brackets was based on the edge of the sink itself and the edge of the small counter below. In the case of the shelf by the stove, the brackets are evenly spaced from the ends of the board. As you decide where to place your brackets, a measuring tape and a pencil will come in handy. You might even consider putting a T-square on your Christmas list if you are lacking one as I am, wink! I placed the brackets against each piece of wood on the floor and used the floor to make sure they’d be flush to the wall. This step is based on the assumption that the floor and the wall are actually level—in my apartment they are not, but it’s close enough. Once the brackets were in position, I used a set of bar clamps to hold them in place while drilling.

The most important part of drilling is making sure not to go through the boards. You spent a lot of time staining them, remember? As I learned from Rod, the easiest way to do this is to wrap a small piece of tape around your drill bit that indicates how deep you want the bit to sink.

With the brackets in place, it’s time to mount the shelf on the wall. You’ll need a level and your pencil again. Since I have only 2 hands (again, I’m a human—not an octopus), I don’t have any pictures of this part. Taking a tip from Anna of Door Sixteen, I painted out the bottom half of the brackets so the shelves would appear to float.

Now that the shelves are in place, it’s time to put them to work. Give them a purpose, make them feel wanted, and make sure they feel pretty. As I said, the main role for the shelf above the sink was to give us a solid place to store soap. But, as you can see in the above images, there’s room for a bit more than that. I read recently that all decorating is part function, part display. I was thinking 100% display with everything that came after the dishsoap, but it turns out this open storage is also highly functional. Tom and I are actually using these pieces now that they’re within arm’s reach. That, of course means our pretty bowls feel useful again and these shelves feel pretty useful—esteemed, even.

Special thanks to the man in the stain aisle, my father, and Tom for contributing a second set of hands.

At the end of November, Remodelista featured the Filigrantrae, a Danish wooden Christmas tree that can be used year after year. I was taken, but the marthaandtom production budget didn’t exactly have $275 floating around with which to fulfill all our Scandinavian holiday fantasies.

Almost immediately after seeing the images on Remodelista and then Design Public, a little idea floated into my head… I could make this myself. A typical I-could-make-that feeling turns into “I could make it, I just didn’t” …but not this time.

With the aid of a math problem made Facebook status, I developed a plan, helped along by Emma’s Designblogg‘s sharing of a series of photographs originally from Bolig Magazine of a Danish family’s home with one of these babies in every room (at $275, you bet they come in multiple colors: rødt, lime, sort, hvidt, and lilla). This was the final inspiration I needed.

With only hours left before snow would seal us in our apartment for the foreseeable future, we made a mad dash for Home Depot on Friday night. While everyone else was stocking up on snowblowers and shovels, Tom and I were shopping lumber. At $26.86 before tax — power-sawing included — we were off to a good start.

As of yesterday evening, we now have a fully-decorated tree that can be used again and again.

Before you head to your local lumberyard to buy out their dowel supply, I would share that this wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I have a renewed understanding of what it means to have the right tools for the job and a steadier hand with a drill. With all of the mistakes that went into this one, I was very tempted yesterday to throw out the central pole and begin again (I bought different drill bits midway through the project almost doubling the total cost. But at less than $50, I’m still not complaining).

While it’s not perfect, I’m taking the suggestion of my father (who I must thank for his willing participation in a video-chat planning session on Saturday) and living with all the character of this first attempt. With no further work in store, I finished just in time for my self-imposed deadline of December 15, the night before my family’s tradition of reading the Novena de Aguinaldo is to begin.

The Ingredients:

four  ½” round pine dowels, each 48″ in length cut into twelve sections in varying sizes (my plan called for 4″x1, 6″x3, 10″x2, 16″x2, 20″x3, 18″x1, 26″x1 but I was only estimating based on pictures of the original)

one 5′ pine closet pole (the original design has an angled cut at the top… I forgot to request this of the staff at Home Depot)

one tapped 1/4-20 wood insert and accompanying bolt to fit (mine was about 2.5″ long) these should cost about $.30/ea. at your local hardware store

one pine 1×4 cut to lengths of 16.5″ (2 pieces) and 4″ (two pieces)

Wood Glue (you’ll need screws and/or wood clamps to get a tight seal)

Sandpaper

Drill with the following drill bits: ½” wood specific* bit (for drilling into the center pole), a smaller but not too small bit for creating pilot holes before using the ½” bit, ¼” bit (to create holes in the base and central pole for the bolt, ⅜” bit (to create a hole in the central pole for the wood insert)

Don’t forget wood scraps for practice if you’re less-than-handy with your drill. I bought a 1′ section of a closet pole in addition to the 5′ central pole of the tree to practice making ½” holes and kept the extras from the 1×4 to prevent my drill from going through our living room floor.

All measurements included are approximations based on studying pictures and descriptions of the original Danish design. If you plan to make your own, don’t worry about sticking too carefully to the exact specifications listed here. Note also that the original design uses birch, which is no doubt much easier to obtain in northern Europe than in a big box wood retailer in the midwestern United States, where pine is widely available for a very low cost.

*Using drill bits not made specifically for wood working may result in much less than perfect drilling. For best results, DO NOT use a flat bit, even if it is specified for use on wood. I used this brand and was able to buy a single ½” bit at the hardware store. For help getting to know your drill, click over to Design*Sponge’s new feature on building your toolbox.

As January comes to a close, it’s really starting to feel like 2010. This weekend, while less activity filled than, say, our cross country ski marathon, was well enjoyed. On Saturday morning I was inspired by Bon Appétite to prepare crêpes for breakfast. With only one so bad it had to go straight to the trash (that was #3, one and two came out just fine), I am no longer afraid of this thin egg pancake with a French accent. Bon Appétite may be right, “crêpes are a cinch, with no special… pan required.” We enjoyed ours with a mix of cheeses inside (gruyère was the clear favorite) along with chopped cilantro and green onions and the occasional splash of chipotle Tabasco. If you’d like to try your hand at the recipe, hop over to Bon Appétite’s website. Don’t worry if you don’t have buckwheat at home; not about to run out on a Saturday morning, I used a mix of rye and whole wheat flours instead.

Martha: café con leche, largo de leche (left). Tom: tinto (right).

See you in February!

In mid-nineteenth century Italy, as power passed from one faction to another fighting to control the unification of the country, many lower-class people — ever ignored by political elites — resorted to brigantaggio, or brigandage, both as a means of securing a living and a form of resistance against occupiers foreign and domestic. In the United States today, the brevity of the Wikipedia article alone suggests the extent to which this movement has been forgotten. But where memory fades, food can preserve, and as we are talking about Italy it is only appropriate that the memory of the brigantaggio be preserved in its very own pasta shape: cappellacci dei briganti (brigands’ hats).

I discovered this shape while browsing through Oretta Zanini de Vita’s excellent Encyclopedia of Pasta, published last year in English by the University of California Press, which I received from Martha for Christmas. After introductory essays covering the significance of pasta in Italy and the methodology of her research, Zanini jumps into a comprehensive, alphabetically organized listing of pasta shapes, both home and factory-made. Many of the descriptions are accompanied by sketches, although as this is not a cookbook — something the author and translator both insist upon — the level of detail provided is generally insufficient to reproduce the pasta at home. Cappellacci dei briganti did feature a sketch, however, as well as the following description of how to make them:

The flour is sifted onto a wooden board and kneaded long and vigorously with a few eggs, water, and salt. The dough, which should be firm and smooth, is left to rest, then rolled out with a rolling pin into a very thin sheet. An inverted liqueur glass is used to cut small disks from the sheet. Each disk is wrapped into a cone around the tip of an index finger and the edge sealed, then one side is folded back like the brim of a hat. They are air dried and then boiled in plenty of salted water. (64)

Between the distinctive sketch and the intriguing history, I couldn’t help but try to make some brigands’ hats at home.

I started by making my all-purpose pasta dough, using a technique from Cook’s Illustrated. First, I put two cups of flour in the food processor and pulsed it a few times to distribute the flour evenly. I then added three eggs and allowed the machine to run until the mixture was granulated. To finish the dough I add water teaspoon by teaspoon with the processor on until it comes together in a single mass. Then I kneaded the dough a few times, shaped it into a ball, and let it rest in the refrigerator for a half hour. I suspect this method, utilizing a food processor instead of a hundred-year-old flour-soaked board, would be upsetting to Zanini and her sources, but it’s a clean and fast way to produce reliable pasta dough.

When the dough had rested long enough to be workable, it was ready to be divided in quarters and passed through the pasta machine (another gift from Martha, from a few years ago). Using a small wine glass, I cut circles out of the thin sheets of pasta.

The next step, which sounded so easy in the description from the Encylcopedia, required quite a bit of trial and error. Eventually I figured out exactly where to put my index finger — slightly off from the center to get a slanted cone — and how much of the dough needed to be folded over itself in a triangle to form the cone. This is definitely a place where fifty years of pasta-making experience — as opposed to 5 minutes of reading a book — would have paid off.

With a slightly off-center cone to work with, folding the brim of the hat was more straight-forward. The long part of the cone is simply folded up. The only trick to this was initiating the folds with the piece of pasta upside-down; trying to do it from the side resulted in a slightly crushed hat. Although I suppose in the line of duty, a brigand’s hat might get a little out of sorts.

After using all my dough to fill two sheet pans with hats, I boiled them for just under five minutes.

Anybody a little familiar with the Italian ways of pasta knows that at least as important as its shape is the sauce it’s served with. For cappellacci, nothing but a lamb ragú will do. Luckily, Clancey’s was able to provide a beautiful piece of lamb for a slow braise in a sauce consisting mainly of tomatoes canned during the height of the season last August — which tasted mercifully of summer and not botulism.

Though the brigands of Italy are long defeated and perhaps even forgotten, their hats — transformed into pasta and covered in a delicious ragú — deserve to live on.

With the canning season beginning and (nearly) two jars of tomato sauce under our belts (note that jar #2 is not quite so full as jar #1), I got curious about meat sauces. Aside from the type of canned food I’d generally stay away from, you don’t often see pasta sauces with meat in the grocery aisle. If we’re using a pre-made sauce, most of us are adding meat at home. With that in mind, I began to wonder what sort of conditions one would need to can a home-made meat sauce: would it be much different from the process of canning vegetarian tomato sauce? I asked this question of the canning expert of the moment over at Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. Marisa McClellan, author of Food in Jars, gave her answer.

It’s actually a very different process. The reason we’re able to can fruits and some vegetables in nothing more than a boiling water canner is that they are high acid foods…. However, meat is a low acid food, which is the ideal environment for botulism. Because of this, low acid foods need to be processed in a pressure canner.

Read her full explanation here.