My present kitchen
The kitchen is tiny. There’s no room for either a dishwasher or an oven. There’s no extractor hood, and there are wooden shelves above a two-ring hob that doesn’t work, over which I have my only working burner (a portable electric induction hob). The steam not only causes the wood directly above the hob to rot, but also condenses and drips down (contaminated, moreover, by whatever it might have absorbed from the wood) onto whatever you happen to be cooking. The window is small too, and looks out onto an equally small communal courtyard, which sometimes lets in more smoke and smells than it lets out.
I can’t bake anything, or cook anything that requires several burners at once. I cook for one, with little time to spare, and there’s very little room in the fridge and freezer for containers of leftovers, prepared ingredients or stock.
All the same, there are still quite a few things I can make.
To the options already available, I’ve added the possibility of an air fryer and, more recently, that of a G3 Ferrari electric pizza oven. I think the benefits of these appliances would justify the expense, significantly expand my repertoire of meals and improve my mood. Among its other advantages, the air fryer would save a great deal of oil, cooking time and washing-up, and therefore save electricity and water, as well as sparing me some fatigue and sadness. Homemade bread costs next to nothing, as it requires only flour, water, salt and a very small amount of oil. Making a pizza entirely from scratch and baking it at home in just 3–4 minutes at 400 °C must surely be an experience in itself, one of those things that invite you to live. But I still can’t quite bring myself to buy either the oven or the air fryer, because neither is strictly necessary.
I have a coffee grinder somewhere, which I can’t remember where I put and haven’t made much effort to look for, because although the smell of freshly ground coffee beans is another of those things that invite you to live, the extra time and expense involved in making coffee that way would probably not be justified by the corresponding invitation.
The important thing is that I’ve started cooking and eating with a certain minimum degree of normality again, for the first time in years, and, among other things, I feel less tired despite the increase in activity, and less hampered despite all sorts of hindrances.
I haven’t yet noticed any financial improvement. I’d like to think that’s simply because the acquisitions are so recent, rather than because cooking at home is no longer economically worthwhile.