I’ve spent most of the past couple weeks immersed in apartment hunting, and the search continues. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve spent more time looking for apartments in New York than living in them. This will be my third move since September, 2011, or fourth if you count the move into my friend’s very accommodating parents’ apartment in Soho, where I believe I overstayed my welcome as I looked for my first home. New York, New York!
My new kitchen will be “GUT-RENOVATED WITH BRAND-NEW STAINLESS STEEL GLUTEN-FREE KITCHEN APPLIANCES AND DISHWASHER,” in broker-speak. (Okay, they didn’t say “gluten-free,” but one must read between the lines on Craigslist.) Or, maybe not. Maybe it will still have the previous tenant’s gluten caked into everything. Perhaps there will be a few million of gluten’s cousins, the bedbugs. (Though one broker assured me yesterday that “bedbugs are over.” Phew!)
The apartment will also be approximately the size of a speck of gluten or a bedbug. Everyone loves to joke about this, but so far, truth be told, I’ve lived in a ginormous Washington Heights 2-bedroom and a huge Clinton Hill 3-bedroom and have actually never needed to climb over my own twin bed in order to get to my dresser. Since the plan is to move to East Harlem, I may very well experience just that.
I also may not quite get the kitchen of my dreams—counter space is tough to come by in a city that never cooks. Then again, in my current kitchen I’ve been confined for several months now to this:
…my own little messy gluten-free workspace, which my roommate was kind enough to install for me, far away from the toaster oven and right next to the large and luxurious couch that will most likely not fit through the front door of my new building, much less in the apartment’s living room.
So I’ve learned a thing or two about lack of space, but in my new kitchen, I’m sure to have more than I have now, because we will have a gluten-free household! (Pretty much, anyway. My sister, and soon-to-be roommate, needs her Grape-Nuts—though we’ve been scouting out gluten-free Gnuts recipes.) Yes, I will be making the fateful switch to the much-touted 95% gluten-free kitchen, so the entire kitchen should be safe for me. This will make cooking more relaxing, at least until the next time I bake plastic wrap into my hot cross buns.
I’m nervous, but excited! Now enough time wasting; I’ve got to get back to hitting refresh on Craigslist. Stay tuned. I’m sure there will be an update…any…day…now.
Tell me about your gluten-free kitchens, your real estate adventures, your Grape-Nuts recipes—anything, really, to distract me from the grim ticking-down of days until June 1st, lease-starting day. Hopefully.
Based on a Sprue Story 
They’re not Grapenuts(tm), but I did get a case (8 bags) of Jessica’s All Natural GF granola delivered yesterday that we’re giving you two as a kitchen-warming gift 😉
Thanks, Dad. 🙂 I just ordered a lot of Chex from Amazon because there was a sale. Um, 28 boxes of Chex, to be precise. Delivered to my office. The doorman found that very interesting. Suffice it to say, I won’t be cereal shopping for a while.
Goooood luck! I scoured Nashville for an apartment…the ones close to downtown that I could afford smelled of college kid urine, the ones that said they were “minutes from downtown” were actually 25 minutes away with airplanes landing overhead and any of the good ones listed on Craigslist were gone by the time I got off of work to go and look at them. BUT hold out hope because I did find my little mini manse – and it’s within walking distance (if I absolutely had to) from my place (which I’m not ashamed to say factored into this decision).
Much as I strive to live an uncomplicated life, the world has other plans for me. But to summarize, I have achieved the 95% gluten-free kitchen! I allow my daughter some gluten because I’m scared if she has none she’ll become intolerant (I have no idea why I think that), so she has a box of wheat cereal and a box of rice cereal with barley flavouring. She also has a liquid multivitamin with malt. And the cat has kibble that is 20% cereal (unspecified but I don’t intend to eat it!) but that is it. I am pleased! Of course this could all change in a heartbeat (jobs, housing market, recession, blah, blah, blah…) and I might have to sell up and ship out at any moment to a new house, or something rented where all kinds of gluten might lurk. It can sometimes be a bit choppy out there on the good ship Gluten-Free!
http://theworstroom.tumblr.com/
Ha! I love how none of them have windows. I mean, what’s so bad about that?
ONLY EVERYTHING. You know, you should try to get some more vitamin D in your life. Maybe it’s what you’ve been missing…
You can’t get vitamin D from sunlight through a glass window, didja know? The window keeps out the UVB rays that would produce the vitamin on contact with skin. Fun fact!
Ok touché but sunlight is still important to sleep cycles. http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/sleep/basics/how-to-fall-asleep2.htm
I’m house hunting. I’m not gluten free, but I am poor. So. It’s not easy. 😉
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