Holiday Kitchen Calamities – Expert Advice to Avoid Disaster Stories
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And the cook was so busy.
All the chopping and prepping
Could make you quite dizzy!
But when the big day dawned
And the oven didn’t light,
It was clear a ruined dinner
Would be this family’s plight.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced our share of holiday culinary close calls and catastrophes. And our Bilotta designers were unanimous in stating that the most frequent cause of culinary chaos revolves around appliances.
A Celebrity Client’s Thanksgiving Emergency
Designer Dulcie Acompora had just completed a New York City kitchen for a celebrity client. The night before Thanksgiving, Dulcie got a panicked phone call from the client: her mother was coming into town for the holidays and she realized she didn’t know how to use her new Wolf ovens. (Hint: the client is NOT a celebrity chef.) In what can only be described as the ultimate in customer service, Dulcie and our kitchen partner Royal Green Appliances, raced into the city to give her a personal kitchen appliance tutorial. Emergency averted!
I have a holiday disaster of my own. Take, for instance, the Christmas when I was searing a whole beef tenderloin with rosemary sprigs tucked beneath the butcher’s twine. The rosemary caught fire, which I quickly put out with the nearby fire extinguisher. But as soon as that extinguisher foam hit the hot ceramic cooktop, the entire glass surface crackled as though I’d stepped onto thin ice. Christmas dinner that year was Chinese takeout.
A Personal Holiday Disaster Story
While these two stories only resulted in a ruined evening and a new cooktop replacement, some holiday situations have contributed to full-blown kitchen renovations. It’s what I like to call the four most expensive words in home renovation: “we might as well”. As in “as long as we have to get a new dishwasher, we might as well redo the whole kitchen.”
Turning Disaster into Opportunity
Sometimes it’s a small “ah-ha” moment, like when a customer couldn’t find her turkey baster after she’d already put the bird in the oven. She rushed to the housewares store (thank goodness these stores are open on Thanksgiving!) to buy whatever model they had left in stock. The following day she found her original baster in the back of the kitchen drawer. Time for some serious kitchen decluttering!
From Frustration to Renovation
Sometimes it’s utter frustration that leads to renovation. Senior Designer Aston Smith tells the tale of one of her favorite couples who came to her because of a holiday entertaining standoff: the husband loved to host their large extended family, and the wife had grown to hate it. They’d been struggling for years with their tiny, antiquated space. The wife lamented, “the holidays are too much work! There’s no room to move, dinner is always dry, the food odors linger for days, and the clean-up takes forever!”
While the wife would have gladly turned the kitchen into a dressing room and ordered takeout for the rest of their lives, the husband luckily prevailed. They ended up with a brand-new kitchen. Aston opened up the room by removing a wall, and then further enhanced the feeling of spaciousness by adding glass fronts to some of the cabinetry. Goodbye, claustrophobia! Of course, the cabinets contain all the most desirable organizational bells and whistles: cutlery and utensil dividers, spice drawer inserts, knife blocks in the drawers, base cabinet pull outs and a double trash pullout.
A State-of-the-Art Appliance Suite
But by far the couple’s favorite feature of their new kitchen renovation is their state-of-the-art appliance suite:
- Double convection wall ovens (one with steam cooking capabilities)
- A powerful yet quiet exhaust hood
- Sleek refrigerator and freezer towers
- The most advanced dish-washing technology available on the market
Now they love to cook and entertain, and because Aston and the couple are Facebook friends, she gets the satisfaction of seeing the photos of them enjoying the holidays with friends and family. The wife regularly proclaims, “I wish I’d done it sooner!”.
Appliance Failures Turn to Kitchen Renovation Inspiration
Sometimes, it’s a full-blown appliance failure that triggers kitchen renovation. Senior designer Paula Greer recalls one of the more humorous holiday disaster stories from a client.
The Thanksgiving Oven Fiasco:
- In the middle of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, the client’s oven suddenly stopped working.
- Fortunately, her neighbors were out of town, and she had access to their house key.
- She was warned, though: their oven ran hot, so she needed to keep a close eye on the turkey.
The Solution (and the Chaos):
- With a house full of guests, she found herself running back and forth between homes.
- Eventually, she gave up, grabbed a bottle of wine, and camped out in front of her neighbor’s oven.
- When the turkey was ready, she carried the hot roasting pan back home—bottle of wine tucked under her arm and two clumsy oven mitts on her hands.
The Slapstick Comedy:
- While walking back, she tripped on the sidewalk!
- Thankfully, she saved the turkey just in time, but the wine wasn’t so lucky. It spilled all over the pavement, leaving a scene reminiscent of a crime drama.
Now that we’ve heard the horror stories, what advice would our designers give to avert disaster? In a word: plan ahead. (Okay, so two words!)
Kitchen Design Lessons from the Experts
Senior designer Jeff Eakley and his wife Ellen remodeled their own kitchen quite a few years ago. They only installed a single oven, since they felt they’d only use a second one three or four times a year. Yet, inevitably, when a holiday rolls around and Ellen is working in the kitchen, she yells out to Jeff, “Why didn’t we do a double oven?” Jeff says he gets a lot of referrals around the holidays, not necessarily because of appliances that have failed, but because preparing a holiday meal made them realize either their appliances or their layout (or both) were woefully inadequate.
How to Design a Kitchen for Holiday Success
Designer Dulcie Acompora has some unique advice when designing a new kitchen: if you entertain a lot during the holidays and your space and budget allow it, build in some appliance redundancy for crisis contingency insurance. As Dulcie tells it, a former customer recently returned to her because her ovens had “finally surrendered to overuse over Thanksgiving”. While Dulcie didn’t think this was even possible, it proved fortuitous that the kitchen had originally been designed with both the double wall ovens and a 48” range, which saved the holiday for this avid cook. The moral of the story for Dulcie was how important it is to understand how a client uses – or in this case overuses – their kitchen!
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late
Senior designer Rita Garces has a piece of advice that will resonate with every kitchen designer; plan WAY ahead if you’re hoping to have your new kitchen for a holiday. Rita had clients visit the showroom in September lamenting that they couldn’t cook another holiday meal in their current kitchen, so they needed a new one in time for Thanksgiving. “It has to be beautiful, functional and …”. Hold it right there! If it’s almost October, we can definitely get you that fabulous, functional new kitchen in time for you to host all of next year’s holidays.
The Truth About Kitchen Design
Good design doesn’t just happen overnight—and it often takes much more time than most people imagine.
Here’s why:
- You need to research and shop for appliances.
- Select countertop materials and backsplash tiles.
- Consider lighting, flooring, decorative hardware, door style, molding details, and cabinetry finishes.
- But the most time-consuming part? Nailing down the kitchen layout.
The Process Takes Time:
- Expect more than just a handful of revisions before finalizing the design.
- Cabinetry orders alone can take 12+ weeks for delivery.
After that, you’ll need several weeks for:
- Fabricating countertops
- Installing backsplash tiles
- Painting walls
So, what have we learned here today? That if you experience a holiday disaster in the kitchen, Santa might just leave a brand-new kitchen under your tree – for next year! Happy Holidays from our kitchen to yours!
This post was written by senior designer, Paulette Gambacorta. Paulette has been designed kitchens with Bilotta for over 25 years.
