Kitchen Cupboards #3: Kiki, Come como Kiki

Inside the kitchen of an American expat living in Madrid.

Welcome to Kitchen Cupboards, a monthly ingredient column where, rather than exploring some of my favourite ingredients, I’m taking a peek into some of my favourite food writer, creators and producers kitchen cupboards to talk about which ingredients shape their everyday cooking.

Whilst the first few Kitchen Cupboards interviews have been free, after this month they will be for paid subscribers only. I’d like to give you a helping hand in supporting this reader supported publication, so if you upgrade your subscription using this link on or before November 25th, you’ll get 20% off for a year of either a £4/month or £40/year subscription. Then, not only will you get a peek into a new set of kitchen cupboards each month, but you’ll also receive new and exclusive recipes right into your inbox as well as the essays and monthly links roundups available to free subscribers. Do sign up now, because I’m stupidly excited about the person whose cupboards I’ve already started rooting through for the December edition!

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I think it you ask any Substack food writer, one of their favourite things about the platform will be the sense of community. It was through this community (one of our monthly Substack food writer Zoom hang outs, to be specific) that I met Kiki, the Virginian expat living in Madrid who writes one of my favourite ‘I must open and read this the moment it lands in my inbox’ newsletters

Come como Kiki

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I love her narratives on life in Spain with her Spanish partner written through the narrative of food, so naturally I wanted to take a peek at what they keep in their apartment for this months Kitchen Cupboard.

Usually these features take on the format of question and answers, but as I’m already such a fan of the way she writes about her life, and because she wrote me such brilliant emails sending over these pictures, I’m going to hand you over to Kiki with just a little editing for me for clarity and flow as she takes us around her Spanish kitchen.

We buy spices in bulk when we can; stores here let you bring your own container and they'll fill it for you (or some let you do it yourself). The writing on the labels is actually David's--his handwriting is so much better than mine! As you can see, I also bring back some spice mixes from Trader Joe's when I go to the US. The za'atar and Green Goddess are usually used for raw veggies and salads, while I use the Umami for roasted vegetables and to flavor soups. I use the Citrus Garlic blend when I feel like switching spices up for baked fish.

I actually love… that our spice… shelf that has the two wooden containers on it (those have Maldon salt and truffle salt in them) because it's a good representation of the various types of cuisine we cook. On the left in the tiny square bottle is saffron, which is essential in Spanish dishes like paella. Then there's a homemade pulled pork rub, and garam masala. We like to switch up cuisines a lot in our house! You can also see pizza flour and semola that we use when we make homemade pizzas, a couple of pepper grinders (with white and black pepper), and nutritional yeast at the bottom that I use in some vegetarian/vegan dishes. And there are more Trader Joe's goods at the top!

This is what we call the breakfast and baking cabinet. Again, there's a pretty good mix of each of our backgrounds here! You can see two types of cereal, one Spanish (Chocopic) and one from the US (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, my favorite!). We actually eat cereal as a snack/dessert more than breakfast. On the bottom shelf there are some containers that have chia seeds, powdered sugar, yeast for bread making, and chopped almonds. That's natural peanut butter all the way to the right--it stays in the cabinet until opened and then I move it to the fridge. You can also see some dried fruits, muesli, and steel cut oats. We usually also have some type of granola; I like to add it to soy or coconut yogurt for breakfast. The top shelf is more dedicated baking supplies like brown sugar, baking powder, and vanilla extract. There are also more specialized ingredients like molasses, and sprinkles for cupcakes and sugar cookies

This is our pasta and grain shelf--we keep the ones we use the most here since it's more convenient, and the rest is in our actual pantry. The small yellow pasta in the jar that's nestled between the spaghetti and rice is the kind that we put in our chicken soup (and they're also used in cocido madrileño, a traditional soup here). They're called fideos.

This one has boxed vegetable and chicken broth, dried chickpeas, a million different types of canned tomato (we're Mutti fans as you can see), and some extra pasta!

The top shelf pictured is for drinks: the bottle on the left is hot chocolate mix from Moulin Chocolat, a pastry and gourmet sweets shop here in Madrid. The peppermint hot cocoa was a gift from a friend and comes from North Carolina. All of those colorful boxes are Nespresso capsules. I have a Nespresso machine and an Italian moka, and I would probably have more coffee paraphernalia if I weren't the only coffee drinker in the house!

The lower shelf has David's milk (milk is ultra pasteurized and shelf stable here until opened, something that isn't common in the US) along with more baking goods that we use less frequently. Like a lot of people during the pandemic, we went on a bread making kick, so we have tons of types of flour. We also use it for making pizza and a special Spanish dessert that's eaten around Christmas called Roscón de Reyes.

Speaking of drinks, I also love teas and herbal infusions (David drinks them, too). There used to be a store here in Madrid called Petra Mora and that's where these teas are from. I saw them on a trip before I lived here and fell in love with the designs! The teas are really good, too. The physical store closed in Madrid but you can order online.

The top shelf is all ingredients for various types of Asian cuisine. Those baskets in the back are filled with different types of noodles, sauces, and oils. There are several Asian supermarkets here where we go to stock up on things like sesame oil, mirin, and yaki soba noodles. The prices are cheaper, the selection is way better, and we know that we're getting authentic brands. (Editor: we use the same shaoxing!) I also love trying new fun snacks; last time we went we got Taro ice cream bars which brought back memories of going to Chinatown in Chicago to get Taro milk tea with friends.

The lower shelf is where we keep extras of staple items. You can see bottles of olive oil, peanut oil, bread crumbs, quinoa, spray olive oil, and white rice

And finally, a question from me: Which 5 ingredients in your kitchen cupboards would you simply not be able to live without, and why?

Vegetable and chicken broth - we make a lot of soups and purées in the fall and winter, so we always make sure to have both in our pantry since they serve as the base for most of our recipes

Maldon sea salt flakes - we use this to top everything: tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, fried eggs, seared steak... the list goes on. 

Olive oil - I feel like we can't be in Spain and not list olive oil! The truth is, we use olive oil every day, for cooking as well as making salad dressings or to simply drizzle over a slice of toast with grated fresh tomato (a typical breakfast in Spain). The bottle on the left is the brand that we use day-to-day, the one in the middle is a special unfiltered one we picked up on a day trip a few months ago to a small town outside of Madrid, and the right-most one is a nicer brand that we recommend that people take home when they come to visit.

Oat milk - since I have an intolerance to milk protein, we adapt a lot of recipes to be dairy-free. Oat milk is our go-to replacement for milk in pretty much anything. I find that we need to add a bit more salt to cut the slightly sweet flavor for something like a soup, but oat milk seems to have a richer flavor compared to something like almond milk. Plus it's my favorite plant-based milk to make lattes!

Mustard - I left this one for last because it's probably the most surprising--I hated mustard as a child! Now we use it all the time, for marinades, sauces, and dressings. Maille is my favorite brand (Editor: mine too!), especially Au Vin Blanc, but since we can't find it easily these days we usually end up mixing their Dijon with the whole grain one pictured below.