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Look!

My pantry is finished! (more or less) It still needs another coat of paint on the doors and the supports for the granite, and the Sonos needs to be plumbed in again, but it’s finally there.

I suppose you all know that the word pantry is derived from “pain,” and meaning a place to store bread, so my bread machine is tucked away in the corner. It’s a little too big to fit under the cupboards, sadly, but I do have a bread bin that will be nicely ensconced  there, away from the questing nose of Oscar, who tends to obsess about freshly baked bread. Charlotte the hen is there too, you’ll notice.

Apparently it is traditional for a pantry to include a slab of marble, which is why I have had a small granite shelf, to match the kitchen worktop and island, installed in mine. I envisage this as a place to store ripe Brie at the perfect temperature before we dip into it with freshly baked bread. (I’m not sure, Sue, whether we could bring ourselves to house really smelly cheese like your favourite Epoisses in here. On purpose it is designed without any underfloor heating to keep it cool relative to the rest of the kitchen but I still think that would stink the place out.)

When I have tomatoes in my vegetable box, I shall keep them there on that shelf too, because the fridge will always kill their flavour. My pantry is generally a place to keep food and I’m well satisfied with it.

If you’ve ever read “The Help,” you’ll know that Skeeter sits on a low box in the store room off her kitchen to have whispered telephone conversations with her maids and her would-be publisher in New York (I hope that wasn’t too much of a spoiler.) Romantic fool that I am, I imagine these sorts of furtive goings on happening in this pantry.

I am well pleased.

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