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By Karola Saekel San Francisco Chronicle, Food Section Wednesday, July 22, 1998 When Allen Rehmke cut up a batch of brown grocery bags and pasted the four-inch squares to the kitchen wall, even his wife thought this was - well - a little off the wall. Looking at that wall now, a year later, Linda Carucci has to admit that her husband used eminent good sense. Originally, they'd planned to tile the backsplash and one wall, but only partway to the ceiling; the brown bag mock-up convinced them that it would be more harmonious to use tile on the entire wall. This small episode typifies how cooking teacher/author Carucci, a former dean at the California Culinary Academy, got the kitchen of her dreams - by trial and with very little error. When the couple moved from San Francisco to a 30-year-old house on a winding lane in the hills of Oakland's Montclair District in January of 1996, they knew that remodeling the kitchen was going to be a top priority. (Among other things, the existing kitchen had - horrors - an electric range.) But despite their desire for a great kitchen that would accommodate Carucci's heavy schedule of cooking classes (as many as four a week, with up to 12 students) - or maybe because of it - they took their time. They spent months looking at appliances, countertops, cabinetry, floor coverings, and wall finishes. They visited showrooms where complete kitchens are on display; they used computer visualizations. In the process they encountered some surprises. A Change of Mind He liked the poured concrete counters they saw in some models; she hated them. They both thought they abhorred Corian, but ended up with it, not in sterile-looking white but in Matterhorn, a flecked pattern with a textured finish and colors that pick up the black of the stove and the light tones of the wood of the cabinets. They love it for its looks as well as its legendary indestructibility. "You can even patch it," says Rehmke; when the installer left too wide an opening on the counter behind the stove, he was able to smooth in a narrow extra strip of Corian. The repair is invisible. If there were any other small missteps in the process, Rehmke concedes that he can't blame anybody but himself, since he did virtually all of the work. A chemical engineer by training. He now is a biologist in an East Bay agricultural product research firm. If he were to contemplate another career change, kitchen designer/builder might not be a bad choice. He and Carucci consulted a professional designer, but found that the advice they got was of little use. As an example, Carucci cites the professional opinion that she should have counters slightly lower that the standard 36 inches to make it easier to whisk food. "But I've always worked in professional kitchens with 36-inch counters and found them comfortable," she says. Professional Background Those professional kitchens included Greens (while she was still a student at the California Culinary Academy, where she later worked as an administrator), the Caf„ Lido in North Beach and Barnaby's in Inverness. So the counters in her remodeled kitchen are still 36 inches high. "If I was a pastry chef, maybe that suggestion (to lower the counters) would have made sense. But I am not; I don't do much whisking." And if she does, there is an easy solution: Place the bowl of food on one of the pull-out cutting boards, which lowers it by a good two inches. Tailored To Fit The cutting boards are just one example of how this kitchen is tailored to the owners' personal style and needs. One board, to the right of the stove, pulls out to the side rather than the front, in effect extending the counter. It's more useful that way "when I have a lot of stuff going on at once," and it makes an extra table space for Carucci's cooking students. She teaches both youngsters and adults in hands-on classes as well as her trademark Dinners With a Little Class, demonstrations followed by dinner. Lately, a new class has been added: kitchen remodeling. Especially in the Bay Area, with its large stock of older homes, kitchen redos are big business - and a puzzling undertaking for many homeowners. While re-emphasizing that in kitchen design, one style doesn't fit all, Carucci and Rehmke are nonetheless happy to share their experiences. Just as they changed their minds on Corian, they surprised themselves with their eventual choice of a kitchen floor. They opted for Pergo, a laminate from Sweden that faithfully reproduces the look of wood. It's not as hard-feeling as most artificial floor materials, it's a dream to clean, and it looks marvelous. Rehmke put it down in an irregular pattern reminiscent of old world flooring, so it blends perfectly with all the real woods they live with: Douglas fir beams, pine ceilings, oak floors in the rest of the house, a beveled-edge bird's eye maple dining table and redwoods outside the windows. Carucci manages to keep her kitchen uncluttered, even thought it is not especially large (11 by 12 feet). The secret is that there is a space for everything - a specific space. For example, the doors on one side of the cooking island reveal a roll-out cart that can be moved to wherever it may be needed; pull out shelves for serving pieces; and shallow stationary shelves for trays and large platters. On the cooking side of the island, there's a knife drawer, a drawer for the phone, and cabinet spaces for all frequently used ingredients. The rest - Óthe kind of stuff I use maybe every two weeks or less" - is banished to the two pantries: one a former washer-dryer cabinet in the hallway, the other a utility room where Rehmke stores the tomatoes he cans every year. Those tomatoes come from a farm near Dixon that his grandfather once owned, says Rehmke, who notes that canning has become far easier with an idea that Carucci copied from professional kitchens, which generally have a water hose at the back of the stove. In their kitchen, a retractable so-called kettle filler (a pull-out spigot) is built into the stove top, so full canning or stock pots don't have to be lugged from the sink. The sink faucet, however, is super-practical as well: It, too, pulls out, so it's a faucet and a sprayer in one. The built-in detergent dispenser and the instant boiling water/filtered cool water faucet are one of the few items with which Carucci finds some fault. If she had to do it over, she would place them differently, but says it's no big deal. Having a partner who can do virtually all remodeling work - from wiring and installing gas lines to carpentry and putting up tile - is a big help, both financially (a contractor friend estimated Rehmke's sweat equity in the remodel at about $40,000), and in allowing the project to progress in phases. Carucci says, with a laugh, that it took her months to select fabrics for their living room furniture, so deciding on all the details of a kitchen - appliances, placement, colors, finishes - in one fell swoop would have been a daunting task, fraught with pitfalls. Carucci knew many of the particulars she wanted, from a super-powered vent to the quietest dishwasher, from a large indoor grill to a refrigerator that would be flush with the hallway door (most standard machines are too deep for the space; the new Sub-Zero refrigerator fits perfectly). But she didn't know how all these elements would come together. In the step-by-step planning process, the kitchen grew almost organically. It pleases the owner, it pleases the students, and it even seems to have the approval of BART, the enormous Maine coon cat who likes to watch what's cooking as he perches on one of the kitchen stools. His little sister is more interested in the results of all that cooking than the process. Her name is Muni. What They Liked and What They Didn't When they moved from a San Francisco condominium to a 30-plus-year-old house in the Oakland hills, cooking teacher/writer Linda Carucci and her husband, Allen Rehmke, knew that an extensive remodel of the kitchen was their highest priority. Two-and-a-half years later, the kitchen meets most of their requirements, though it's still a work in progress. They used the services of a designer, but did most planning themselves, and with few exceptions, Rehmke did the work.
"Almost everything," they agree. What They Would Change Their Advice     
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