Shahan Fancy, Corporate Sales Development Manager with Superior Cabinets was recently interviewed for an article about Spice Kitchens for You’re Home Magazine, the official magazine of the Regina & Region Home Builders’ Association.
Content Source: “Make room for a spice kitchen” By Ashleigh Mattern – You’re Home – Summer 2015 Edition.
MAKE ROOM FOR A SPICE KITCHEN by Ashleigh Mattern
Aziz Rehman and Rubina Arshad’s new home has two kitchens. The large show kitchen is bright and airy, with as much space as anyone could hope to use. The second kitchen is tucked in the corner, behind a frosted glass door where you might expect to find a pantry.
This second kitchen is a spice kitchen, a growing trend with homeowners who cook ethnic foods with oils and strong spices.
Rehman and Arshad’s family eat halal, making it harder to find the right kind of food outside the home, so they do the majority of their cooking at home. The spicy scents of their Pakistani cuisine are evident in the spice kitchen, but are absent in the rest of the house. Arshad says that wasn’t the case in their last home.
“Whenever I wanted to cook, I had to go upstairs and close all the doors,” said Arshad.
In the new home, she doesn’t need to worry. Special ventilation and a closed door keep the strong cooking smells contained.
Certain types of cooking can permeate furniture, and a spice kitchen can help with resale because it will keep the smell out of the house, says Shahan Fancy, Superior Cabinets Corporate Sales Development Manager.
“East Indian cooking with ghee and things like that can stain your ceiling and cabinetry in a very short period of time,” said Shahan. “Give it a couple of years, and things aren’t in showroom condition. After a year of hardcore cooking, the ceiling’s completely yellow, and there’s a huge grease spot above it.”
Not only does the spice kitchen keep cooking smells and stains away, it’s also specially designed for the type of cooking done there; when frying or cooking curries, you need everything quickly at hand. And despite the smaller size, the spice kitchen doesn’t feel closed in thanks to a small window and the glass door.
The main kitchen still gets used, say Rehman and Arshad. It’s a bigger space to prep meals and a perfect place to host family and friends. While the main kitchen is fully equipped with all of the must-have appliances, accessories, the second kitchen sticks to the essentials, like a stove, some storage space, counter space and a sink. Some people include a fridge as well.
Spice kitchens are an example of how unique and custom people are making their homes. Fancy has only seen these kitchens in custom homes, and because they’re custom-built, they can get pretty personal. At Superior Cabinets, they’ll even ask clients whether they’re left handed or right handed and design the space accordingly.
“Cooking is such an essential part of a lot of cultures,” said Fancy. “A client who has this sort of cooking requirement for their home, they’re looking to make this an essential part of the design. We’re starting to see more spice kitchens as they become more popular, and as budgets increase. There are a lot of people who would love to have one.”
Rehman designed his spice kitchen so that it could be easily remodeled into a large pantry if the next buyer wanted a different option. But considering the attention they’ve received for the design since they moved into their house in September 2014, they might be able to find a buyer interested in keeping it.
“Quite a few families visited our house, and so far everyone loved this, and everyone said that we’d never seen this kind of house,” said Rehman. “Maybe 15, 20 families came here, and from all different ethnicities, and everyone loved this idea.”
Content Source: “Make room for a spice kitchen” By Ashleigh Mattern – You’re Home – Summer 2015 Edition. http://issuu.com/postmediasaskatchewan/docs/yourhome_june2015/29?e=14230364/13018414
For more information, tips and tricks for planning your Spice Kitchen, check out “Spice Kitchen” on the Design Corner Blog: http://www.superiorcabinets.ca/trends/what-is-a-spice-kitchen/
“Cooking is such an essential part of a lot of cultures. A client who has this sort of cooking requirement for their home, they’re looking to make this an essential part of the design. We’re starting to see more spice kitchens as they become more popular, and as budgets increase. There are a lot of people who would love to have one.”
-Shahan Fancy
