Wednesday, April 16, 2008

In the Kitchen with Anna Olson

Anna Olson of the Canadian series Fresh and Sugar has a fabulous kitchen, but it's not the typical space you'd expect from the bubbly Food Network host.

National Post featured a great article on her cooking space, which fuses everything from vintage to industrial for a truly unique look. I was expecting Olson to have a super expensive, high-end top of the line pre-fab kitchen but instead its a delightful mix of unexpected appliances and decorative elements.

Food TV's Anna Olson's kitchen.

A two-deck commercial pizza oven scored by Anna's husband from a college cafeteria is home to everything from turkeys to baked Alaskas. Olson says the 50-year-old appliance can be a diva though and takes getting used to. For instance, the oven is vented outside so you can't use aroma as an indicator for cooking time. I don't know if I'd be okay with the absence of that fresh-baked cookie smell which makes a kitchen so inviting (but Olson sure has lucky neighbours who get to sniff the fruits of her labour!)

The wall-mounted open shelves mimics the designs of commercial restaurant kitchens and a two-inch-thick maple butcher block countertop contrasts nicely with the black-and-white honeycomb tiles.

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My favourite  though is the (non-working) retro pie fridge that Anna found on the curb and uses as her pantry. How clever!

(Photographs by : Peter J. Thompson/National Post)

1 comment:

Alkemie said...

What a bold color for the kitchen! It's so fun and I must agree that the star is the pie fridge she has as her pantry. I can't believe she found it on the street - where can I find one of those? It's fabulous.

Karen