This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Shireen Marisol Maraji. We've got some kitchen organization tips on this

episode and here to give us some expert advice is I'm a Deb Perlman from Smitten Kitchen and I've

written two cookbooks and I'm a mom of two. Deb lives with her kids and husbands in an apartment

in New York's East Village where she does all her cooking and recipe making in a pretty small space.

I mean it is by like America standards. I don't think it's terrible by city standards. It's

mostly limited by the fact that I just like refuse to put a dime into it because it's a rental apartment.

Yeah so it's not very well set up. How's your counter space in there? It's not very good but I just

want to make clear that when I'm cooking like every surface in the apartment is my kitchen counter.

Like I will annex my kids beds. I use the kitchen the table that we eat on. I will use any surface

that I could find. Yeah I read a quote from you in a people magazine piece from a couple of years

ago where you were basically like if it's too crowded it's not because the space is too small. It's

because we have too much stuff. So what is your first piece of advice for people who feel like

this kitchen is too small. I've outgrown this kitchen but they they can't go anywhere. They're

not going to be able to get a bigger space to work in. I think just you know look at the stuff

you're using the least. I don't mean not that much use because you only you know deep fry once

a year but it's like the happiest day of the year. I wouldn't say get rid of your deep fry or

but stuff that's just not getting used. I always feel like there's stuff you can get rid of.

There's a lot to be said for sort of minimizing things and figuring out ways to put things away

in a cabinet where you can kind of see them. I have extra I don't even know I have like six cabinets.

I mean and I think that's kind of pushing it. Maybe I four. That's not very many. I don't think

that's a lot of cabinets. We don't have a lot of cabinets but I just I found I'm not doing it

for Instagram purposes but I do keep everything in glass jars and it really helps me find everything

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