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Kitchen Crushes - Retro radio

I have a perfectly unhealthy obsession with the colour turquoise, and I can tell you exactly how it started.


I was in my mid-twenties, living alone, and cooking like a single woman often does, which is not much at all. Dinners out, ordering in, and a coffee shop scone masquerading as dinner before a night on the town. I started to crave a little more domestic stability. I wanted my kitchen to be more than a place where I made an occasional cup of tea. I wanted more in my cupboards than a half-empty bottle of whiskey and more in the fridge than a carton of very expired milk. So I set out to pick up a few new cooking tools, some fresh groceries, and something to bring some life into my kitchen (seriously, that apartment was very beige). That's when I found this retro style radio in the most delicious of turquoises. I didn't care how much it was going to cost, I knew the moment I saw it on the store shelf that it would be coming home with me.


It did come home with me and it did bring life into my kitchen. I started listening to music while I cooked, which made my knife slice a little quicker and made me want to linger a little longer by the stove. Jazz started to enter my life and I started using the phrase 'cooking music' to describe the sort of tunes that made me crave slicing and stirring and tasting.


My little radio started to influence the rest of my kitchen. I began to purchase other turquoise kitchen items - measuring cups, baking dishes, glassware, tea towels, all of them in turquoise. Even my KitchenAid mixer, a gift from my husband a few years later, came in the most beautiful pale shade of turquoise.

I have a family now and a family kitchen in a family home. I still have a half bottle of whiskey in the cupboard, but I also have baking supplies, cans of tomatoes, boxes of pasta and rice, and a pretty good collection of spices. A lot has changed about the way I use my kitchen, but my radio is still at the heart of what inspires me.


Do you have a colour theme in your kitchen? What objects inspire your cooking? Leave a comment and tell me about your 'cooking music!'