This week’s Culinate column is about fats again. Cue Homer Simpson noise.

Chewing the fat, part II

I know what you’re thinking after reading these two columns. You’re thinking, “I have not heard Matthew drone on about fats and oils sufficiently.” Well, lucky you. This Saturday I’ll be on Tom Douglas’s Seattle Kitchen on KIRO 710 AM from 5pm to 5:30pm PDT, talking about that exact topic.

Many times I’ve professed my love for Alice Medrich’s New Classic Brownies. I won’t embarrass myself by calling them the “world’s greatest brownies” or something, but they’re the only brownies I ever make. Now the New York Times loves them too, and they printed the recipe. They also printed a couple of other brownie recipes. If you try one and it’s better than New Classic Brownies, I don’t want to hear about it.

How small a kitchen can you handle? Maybe smaller than you think. When we last moved, a year and a half ago, I went from a kitchen that held all of my cooking equipment to one that held less than half. The rest went to a shelving unit in the dining room (an IKEA Ivar, who you may already be on a first-name basis with).

Now, the dining room is not so far from the kitchen. It’s basically the same room. I don’t have to walk down a moldy corridor, just around the sink. In fact, what I should really do is perfect a trademark over-sink vault, but as I am not Mary Lou Retton, instead I’ve figured out how to migrate certain important items back into the kitchen.

Last December, I successfully reclaimed the sugar using some new Tupperware. Now I’m after the spices, and my tool of choice is Bed Bath and Beyond’s magnetic spice jars. They cost $2 and look like this.

That’s the side of the fridge. I bought two jars to see if I liked them, and this meant I had to decide what my two most valued spices were. (Incidentally, upon entering the store I also cursed myself for forgetting to bring one of those ubiquitous 20 percent off coupons, then realized it would save me 40 whole cents.) I chose cumin and was all set to put chili powder in the other jar, when I realized I was defining “spices” too narrowly.

It occurred to me that I use cornstarch, baking powder, and baking soda more often than any given spice, and these should really take the places of honor. I guess it’s a good thing these ingredients aren’t generally considered spices, because then they’d be sold in small quantities for $7, but they’re spices in the sense of “relatively nonperishable dry ingredients used in small quantities.”

I wonder how many of these I can stick on the fridge before they cause more problems than they solve.