Many times I’ve professed my love for Alice Medrich’s New Classic Brownies. I won’t embarrass myself by calling them the “world’s greatest brownies” or something, but they’re the only brownies I ever make. Now the New York Times loves them too, and they printed the recipe. They also printed a couple of other brownie recipes. If you try one and it’s better than New Classic Brownies, I don’t want to hear about it.

How small a kitchen can you handle? Maybe smaller than you think. When we last moved, a year and a half ago, I went from a kitchen that held all of my cooking equipment to one that held less than half. The rest went to a shelving unit in the dining room (an IKEA Ivar, who you may already be on a first-name basis with).

Now, the dining room is not so far from the kitchen. It’s basically the same room. I don’t have to walk down a moldy corridor, just around the sink. In fact, what I should really do is perfect a trademark over-sink vault, but as I am not Mary Lou Retton, instead I’ve figured out how to migrate certain important items back into the kitchen.

Last December, I successfully reclaimed the sugar using some new Tupperware. Now I’m after the spices, and my tool of choice is Bed Bath and Beyond’s magnetic spice jars. They cost $2 and look like this.

That’s the side of the fridge. I bought two jars to see if I liked them, and this meant I had to decide what my two most valued spices were. (Incidentally, upon entering the store I also cursed myself for forgetting to bring one of those ubiquitous 20 percent off coupons, then realized it would save me 40 whole cents.) I chose cumin and was all set to put chili powder in the other jar, when I realized I was defining “spices” too narrowly.

It occurred to me that I use cornstarch, baking powder, and baking soda more often than any given spice, and these should really take the places of honor. I guess it’s a good thing these ingredients aren’t generally considered spices, because then they’d be sold in small quantities for $7, but they’re spices in the sense of “relatively nonperishable dry ingredients used in small quantities.”

I wonder how many of these I can stick on the fridge before they cause more problems than they solve.

Another bulgogi insight. I had some leftover bulgogi the other day, so I brushed a hot dog bun with peanut oil and toasted it in a pan, then spread the bun with kochujang (Korean hot sauce) and filled it with reheated bulgogi. I think this could be huge at the ballpark, and I’m already thinking ahead to other stir-fried sandwiches.

Two minor updates to recipes I’ve published in the past.

In the rhubarb crumble recipe, I called for “rhubarb, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces”. There’s no need to peel rhubarb for this recipe. I don’t know why I thought you had to. Blame me for this, not Nigella. I’ve fixed the original post.

As for this bibimbap recipe, this is very minor, but last time I made the bulgogi, I was delighted with the flavor, as always, but not with the gray color. This time, I substituted 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce (Pearl River Bridge Mushroom Soy Sauce, to be specific) for 1 tablespoon of regular soy sauce. Same great taste, beefier color.

A couple weeks ago, I wandered into a new store in the basement of Westlake Center and into another world.

The store is called Daiso, and it’s one of the few US locations of an enormous Japanese department store chain. They carry a wide variety of household products, most of which are identifiable to non-Japanese speakers. There’s a huge section of plates, bowls, teapots, and the like, both ceramic and plastic, with nice designs. You can get those green colanders, of course. Slippers, stationery, cookware, tools–it’s a department store. There’s a rather perfunctory food department which didn’t much appeal to me.

Even if you don’t already know about Daiso, I hope you’re sensing a punchline, and here it is: everything at Daiso costs $1.50. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. There are a few things for $2 or $5, or even $10, but these constitute certainly less than 10 percent of the items on sale. The hip notebooks that girls pay $10 for at Kinokuniya are $1.50. Mise en place bowls that I buy for $6 at Sur La Table? $1.50. It’s hard to get your head around, like a wacky TV segment where a guy tries to give away free stuff on the street.

The quality is, as you’d expect, variable. I would not buy a $1.50 chef’s knife, but the dishes seem fine. They sell dozens of styles of little plastic food storage containers which are very cute. Probably they could snooker me into buying things that are normally less than $1.50. “You mean this potato is only $1.50? Awesome–hey, wait a minute.” They have a decent selection of drill bits, for example, but I can’t remember what they charge for drill bits at the hardware store.

Today I ended up with some of those green vegetable-preserving bags and a little tennis game for Iris. There’s also a Daiso at Alderwood Mall and one in Richmond, BC. It will definitely freak you out.