in praise of our bread box

and a 'for the week ahead' class this Sunday!

I like to tell you about things that make me relaxed and happy in my kitchen. This week, that thing is our new bread box. Here it is:

It’s a cute corner unit that’s got a shelf in the middle, so really it’s two layers, a double-decker if you will. It’s got clear plexiglass so you can see what’s in there. It fits perfectly between our cupboard and our counter. When we got it the other week, I told Grace that I felt like our kitchen just became a grandparent’s kitchen (to be clear, this is a compliment). Here’s where we got it.

For years, this same spot on our counter had become a carb catchall. Bread, crackers, English muffins, and random bits of candy would accumulate there. I tried corralling everything on a sheet pan and tried other trays, too, but it would just pile up and the uncontained-ness of it all made me frustrated. I didn’t like that all of this stuff didn’t really have a home in our kitchen.

I know I am prone to overthinking, but I have been thinking a lot about this. After all, we have a place for just about everything else in our kitchen — pots, pans, silverware, sure, but also rotating lazy susan thingies for our vinegars and soy sauce and other bottles of things. We have a drawer for spices. We have a tall, narrow cupboard that I retrofitted with some rods to hold our sheet pans. For so long, everything has had a place except for bread and its friends.

I think this is because for so long, I denied myself bread and its friends.

I did this for years before I met Grace as I was then in an endless pursuit to make myself smaller. And some years ago when Grace was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, we both became very weary of carbs as we learned what Grace’s chronic condition meant. At the time, following a low-carb diet made a lot of sense. It allowed for Grace to more easily figure out the ins and outs of doing the work Grace’s pancreas used to do (namely, dosing insulin). It allowed me to be a supportive wife, but really, and more sneakily, it allowed me to continue restricting myself in the name of being a supportive partner.

Anyway, we’re out of that season in our house.

Grace has become fluent in the language of having Type 1. I have learned about my own internalized fatphobia and the broader culture of anti-fat oppression as I have continued to acknowledge and heal from having an eating disorder (see here, here and here for a bit more on that).

These days, neither Grace nor I restrict or deny ourselves. And of the many positive things that have come out of this shift, one is our adorable bread box. Because our bread deserves a home in our home, just as we do in our bodies.

My online cooking class this Sunday (April 2nd) at 2pm EST will be a ‘For the Week Ahead’ class. It will include four recipes that can happily sit in your fridge for the week ahead, plus lots of ideas of how to mix-and-match items + ideas for other simple things you can make or buy to extend the recipes.

»»» SIGNUP HERE! «««

»»» CLASS FAQs HERE! «««

Thanks for being here! xo, Julia