APRONS!

I love to cook and I love most of the accoutrement associated with cooking. I can wander in a grocery store for hours. I love specialty food stores, but even a regular supermarket gives lots of 'scope for the imagination'. I love Sur la Table and Willams Sonoma and even the kitchenware sections of Target and Walmart. I can walk past beautiful clothing in Nordstrom's and Macy's without a qualm, but walking out of any store without purchasing something cooking oriented requires masses of self control.

Since I also love fabrics (fabric stores are difficult for me, too and I don't even do more than rudimentary sewing), aprons are especially dear to my heart. I wear them a lot - plain ones for dirty work and I have a few pretty ones that I wear when I need some protection, but not enough that the risk of ruining them is high.

This is my everyday one:


And Mr. Kim's:


I have Christmas ones. This is one that my MIL, Judy made for me:






I have one from a cooking class that I took at from chef Roberto Donna at Bebo Trattoria in Washington, DC:


And, of course, the obligatory ‘funny’ one:


Mr. Kim came through for Valentine's Day:


And this lovely was tucked into my Easter basket:


The matchless Maggie of eGullet.org and Best Food Writing of 2009 and her own wonderful blog "Cheap and Cheerful" (linked on the right) posted about her obsession with aprons here:
http://cheapcheer.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/the-ur-apron/.
She makes the most beautiful aprons, very professionally done with gorgeous fabric. I actually saw her first one when Mr. Kim and I visited Rachel (of Lawn Tea - linked on right) and Chris. Rachel was a lucky recipient of one of Maggie's lovely efforts, an Asian themed fabric number. I felt very snazzy wearing it in Rachel's kitchen peeling asparagus and coveted it quite sinfully:

Eeeek! Please pay attention ONLY to the lovely apron and NOT to the
pudding-y arms. I wish every top I owned had 3/4-length sleeves.

Anyway, imagine my delight when I was surprised by a package at my door
last week containing THIS:



My side.





Mr. Kim's side.

A marriage apron, if you please. Already Mr. Kim is, I think, picturing himself standing at his Weber Bullet, smoking ribs and chickens!

Anyway, thank you, thank you, Miss Maggie for my wonderful gift. I don't know where you find the time to be as fabulous as you are and I'm adding you to the list (Rachel's on it, of course) of who I want to be when I grow up (I know that we are probably 'of an age', but I always feel somewhat 'unfinished' next to my accomplished and awesome friends).