Klay Blog
Things we use in our studio kitchen
Most of the items in our studio kitchen are things we also sell. We import items from around the world that we personally use everyday and recommend, so I thought I would show our most commonly used items and tell you about some of the other things we don't sell too, but do get asked about from time to time :)
When we first moved into our workshop we removed the grey plastic cupboard doors that were in the kitchen. They were scrappy open shelves (not in a nice way) for a long time before we finally got some ply cut to replace them. We had fun shopping from our own shop choosing the door knobs/ handles that we sell to go on them and in the end went with the Iridescent Gold Dome Knobs, which Kirsty said it was like picking buttons and that it was like jewellery for the kitchen <3.
We have a stock pile we have been collecting over the years of the linen tea towels from Japanese brand Fog Linen. The tea towels are very, very good. They are absorbent, fast drying, get more floppy/ soft as they used... and so pretty in our little scrappy kitchen. We have several colours to choose from here. We also keep a little linen oven mitten handy in our kitchen. We also sell the Iron Rails that they are sitting on, which we also use as a door handle in this situation! The S hooks hanging from the Iron Rail above are from Frances Nation Shop, although these S hooks are a common size/ shape, I have found the ones at Frances Nation have a much nicer finish and tone than others around. The hand towel to the left is from our friend Harry Were's shop.
We have been collecting Sori Yanagi kitchenware for years. I got the cutlery from Japan (we don't sell it). The lovely Melbourne based cafe/ shop CIBI does though!
We do sell the Galvanised Steel Tray they are sitting in though :)
We have four options of the storage box/ trays by Fog Linen made from Galvanised Steel that we sell & we use all of them! There is the Utensil Stand, the Card Box, the Spice/ Cutlery Storage Box and the Tissue Box.
One of my favourite items I own is a tomato red Taiwanese rice cooker called Tatung. It's the best rice cooker I have owned. It always cooks rice perfectly & it is so well designed and a pleasure to look at and watch chattering. Tatung rice cookers are iconic in Taiwan. Apparently Tatung have 95% market share of rice cookers in Taiwanese house holds.
Mum introduced us to Tatung rice cookers years ago when it became her hobby in her spare time to research rice cookers -she spent several months looking for a rice cooker with a stainless inner (and not that non stick stuff that's often toxic).
Tatungs colours from the 60s are still the same: white, red (like we have) and that sweet pastel green. We use ours to make all sorts of rice: Japanese rice, basmati, jasmine, brown rice, wild rice and also for steaming Veges, dumplings and Bao buns.
We bought it from a local family run business called '100% Lim Electronics', but they have now started a new business that focuses on just selling these rice cookers! If you are in New Zealand you can buy Tatung rice cookers from www.ricemi.nz
In the USA you can get them from Yun Hai Shop.
The simple and elegant design of these hasn't changed since 1960's. The design of these are 60 years old. I can't think of any other electronics that have had such a long lasting well functioning design. The inner is stainless steel and is a double boiler style- technically a steamer, rather than a cooker. We read that these were inspired by a rice cooker manufactured in 1955 by Toshiba with a similar design (which we went to visit at a museum when we were in Tokyo last! see pic below). We took a train for an hour to visit Matsudo Municipal Museum to see this Toshiba rice cooker inside a recreation of a 1960's Tokyo apartment.
Mason found this when researching the origins of Tatung rice cookers. The iconic Taiwanese Tatung rice cooker is modelled off this Japanese Toshiba one, which is no longer in production. But the Tatung one is. *Note about the Matsudo Museum - it's out on its own 1 hour away. It's a small museum compared to others & I probably wouldn't recommend it if you're short on time in Tokyo. We were very interested to see this display because of the rice cooker :D & there was a Jomon pottery exhibition on at the time we went but it was tiny compared to Tokyo National Museum's permanent exhibition. I've posted more Tokyo tips on the blog post here.
We eat together everyday in our studio kitchen. Usually leftovers/ batch made meals from the freezer. A couple times a week we have sweet treats too. For snacks like cookies, cakes, fruit or toast, we use our pretty little silver plates by Fog Linen. Pictured here with the beautiful xmas cake from our favourite bakery Florets.
I love the way the silver plates reflect the colour of what is sitting on them.
Another item we love and use everyday (but don't sell) is the Aarke fizzy water maker. We try not to drink sugary drinks and don't drink much alcohol, so enjoy refreshing bubbly water especially on hot days. Aarke is a Swedish company. These water carbonators are pretty commonly available these days. I saw them in Japan too! We got ours from a NZ shop (online) called 'Gary Anderson'.
I recently asked on instagram stories if any one (worldwide) had suggestions for alternatives for gas refills to Soda Stream. As most of us know by now that's a key target on the BDS movement boycott list. We all must boycott Soda Stream, let your friends and family know too! There's actually many alternatives and they're smaller businesses that are way better to support anyway. I'm sharing the responses here all as one list for anyone that might have missed those stories. If anyone has any more suggestions please let me know. Let's share our knowledge to make sure we aren't supporting apartheid.
NZ:
•We get gas bottle refills from Oh Bubbles. You can get them from their website & they deliver them to you & you send back empty bottles. But just a warning their website is a bit hard to use (maybe just me) and they have very full on marketing emails. You can exchange the Oh Bubbles bottles at some New Worlds too. You can also send Oh Bubbles empty Soda Stream canisters if you have them already to get started.
Someone in NZ also suggested Soda Sparkle
Australia:
•Soda King (at convenience stores)
•Qarbo Bottles
•twenty39.com.au
•someone said they get a 2.6kg refill co2 tank from the homebrew shop - no canisters & cheaper!
Melbourne:
•Fair Fizz refill service by CERES Fair Food ($10!)
•Billy Bubbles
Sydney:
• Zuft
USA:
•Simply Soda from the local hardware store (California?)
•Aarke website
UK:
•Aarke website also in the UK (and across Europe) for refills
•AND so is Oh Bubbles UK
•co2you
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement works to end international support for "Israel's" oppression of Palestinians and pressure "Israel" to comply with international law.
The water glass above is by Iconic Japanese glassware company HARDSTRONG. I got these from Kyoto from a shop I can not remember the name or where it was. But if you look up HARDSTRONG, you might find them :)
Klay Aprons
We use one of our indigo aprons in the workshop kitchen. We wear it when making lunch and cleaning up. This is to protect our clothes getting oil splatters and wet marks from leaning up against the bench when doing the dishes. Wearing an apron while cooking means my clothes stay cleaner and I don't need to wash them as much. The indigo is a lovely floppy soft and light weight Japanese linen cotton that I sourced from a 200 year old fabric shop in Kyoto & they sent us rolls to NZ. This fabric wears very well. We have been using this for over a year now and have washed it heaps.
The other aprons we have at our workshop are the natural canvas ones. These are used for making/production, particularly when making our cushion inners as the recycled wool we use gets very fluffy and can go all over our clothes. Some fabrics are fluffy too, so these canvas aprons get worn a lot by all of us. We are all different sizes and heights and the one sized aprons works on all of us because of the way the cross back straps can be adjusted. Our aprons are cross back style to be able to fit a range of body sizes and heights and also for comfort. I can't stand aprons that go around the back of my neck tugging my neck down! Because we wear aprons a lot, comfort was a priority. The cross back style takes a little getting used to getting it off and on, but once you get the hang of it the extra 20 seconds (yes, I timed it) putting it on is worth it in my opinion!
We recently put up one of the BOLTS hardware aluminium pegs in our studio kitchen to hang up our apron. There are a few other hooks that we sell that would be great for hanging our aprons too, like the Erno Hooks, the Aluminium Hooks, the Oak Peg or the Pasodoble coat hook.
These dish racks are the best quality I've ever used (and seen!). These are probably our most popular item we have sold - these sell out fast. We hope to have these as an on-going item, however they come by boat so theres usually a bit of a wait between batches. If you don't want to miss out on one then please subscribe to our email newsletter (enter your email at the bottom of any page of our website) as I email newsletter subscribers as soon as these arrive,
These dishracks are made in Japan from high quality stainless steel. They're an investment item and not comparable to others I have seen around, the quality in terms of developed design, material and construction means they're one of those expensive items you purchase once and are set for a really, really long time.
The dishracks are so strong and sturdy and can take big stacks of pots and pans! We don't have a dishwasher so being able to do big stacks is important.
We use cotton hand knitted dishcloths from Harry Were's shop, which hang from Michael Marriott's Erno Hooks. These work really well because they are plastic so don't get damaged by a constantly wet cloth sitting on them.
Our wooden cutting board is from Emile Dreschers Shop. Emile has just released a new range of chopping boards on his website.
We use bowls that I brought back for our personal use from Japan. They are from one of the countless little shops in a Japanese pottery town called Shigaraki, which is about a 1.5 hour drive from Kyoto. Shigaraki is the home of one of Japans six ancient kilns.
The creamy bowl sitting at the front of this image is by Anna Hodgson and the brown, navy and off-white ones behind are all from Shigaraki.
The giant white mugs we use were handmade by my friend Anna Hodgson, who also created the artwork of our first post card (which you can read about on this blog post here). The brown mug is from a lovely shop called Mingei-ten in the Japanese pottery town Mashiko.
This black tea pot is from a Japanese pottery company called Nagatani-en that we visited when we were on a road trip in Japan. We went to checkout the beautiful donable pots they make and left with this tea pot! I have no idea if they have an online store or ship these tea pots, or if they are an on-going item they make as we just got one in person from their open studio shop in a remote village. I do know that CIBI in Melbourne sells a great range their amazing donabe pots though!
This coffee filter holder is a prototype of one that Mason has designed to be made by Emile for us to sell on our website :) these will be available soon <3
The spice jars below are ones Mason and I collected from a few different supermarkets during our stays in Kyoto. They came with spices in them, which we had to use up before we left Japan :D
The spice jars are by iconic Japanese spice brand S&B (who make the Japanese curry packs we get in NZ!). These spice jars come in so many colours - usually matching the colour of the spices inside (ie yellow for turmeric, red for paprika, green for yuzu, white for white pepper etc). The spice jars actually have a good design award... they are so special. Keep an eye out for them in the spice section in supermarkets if you head to Japan!
They are sitting on a little wooden off-cut, that Mason salvaged from Emile's offcuts pile, that Mason turned into a perfect little shelf for the spice jars to live on.
I use this little tape measure more in my home kitchen, than the workshop kitchen for baking and cooking but I thought I would mention it as I do find it quite a handy kitchen tool to check/ get an idea of how thick/ thin to cut things,
Another item more commonly used in my home kitchen is the cookbook stand by Michael Marriott. We are mostly re-heating leftovers at work so don't use cookbooks much for lunch. But I use this most nights at home! So handy for clearing up bench space and keeping my precious cookbooks clean and bug free.
I found this vintage Braun coffee filter on trademe last year for $25. I couldn't believe my luck! It had been collecting dust in a garage for years but was in great condition after we spent a few hours cleaning it :D we use this everyday & are always saying how lucky we were to find one on trade me.
This is a Natural Canvas Disc Squab cushion that we have been using everyday in our workshop for about 3-4 years. We use it on top of stools in our kitchen to make them more comfy. I love how it's flattened and become even more disc shaped over the years from being sat on so much.
All of the items mentioned that we sell can be found in our kitchen collection page here. We have lots more kitchen items too! These are just the ones we have in our workshop kitchen :) here some examples of other kitchen items that we sell...
Thanks for reading my blog post! If you want to see more of our workshop and process and tips check out our other blog posts here. Hannah :)