Fear not your kitchens, great and small

I'm in my second kitchen since becoming vegan. I don't have any photos of our previous kitchen but think studio apartment (big room with a bathroom). As you walk in the door you have a small square of counter next to a small apartment size stove. On the upside, this was a gas stove and aside from the oven seal leaking half the heat out it worked pretty well.
Beside the stove was a small doorless closet/pantry type room. This housed the sink, about the size of a normal bathroom sink. Another small square of counter, smaller than the first but big enough to hold a dish strainer. Washing dishes in this sink was a job. You would bang dishes against the taps* and you would get wet.** After reading How To Cook In A New York Apartment by Laura Dave I know that it could have been much much worse.*** At the back of this room were strangely deep shelves where we kept our dishes, silverware, nonperishables, everything kitchen basically.

I'm surprised I didn't give up on cooking there, vegan or no. I wasn't really raised on processed junk so I don't think I have it in me to live on junk. I surely have eaten the boxes of macaroni & cheese as a kid and as an adult I've had mac and chreese (or whatever) but I have always wanted to create my own meal. Bring together the parts to make something bigger, sometimes better sometimes not.

The new apartment is much more spacious, the kitchen much bigger, with cupboards! I'm using up all the counter space and loving that my cookie sheet fits all the way in my sink.
The stove is electric (boo!)
And after a few months of cooking I built up a pretty decent spice collection. There is actually another row of herbs & spices behind the visible on in the bottom picture.
Before making the shift to vegan, my cooking sucked. I could make edible foods but you would never call any of my creations "culinary delights." I could bake, thank my mom for that one. She always baked from scratch. You would never find a mix in our house. You will never find a mix in my house now. Since becoming vegan I have lost my fear of trying new foods, new techniques, and of screwing up. I still screw up, not all recipes turn out as intended but I'm no longer afraid of the potential results. This is most likely because my ingredients are less likely to kill me if improperly prepared but we shall leave the dangers of meat cooking/preparing/eating for some other time shall we?

*yes taps, there were two, poised right over the tiny sink forcing everything to be angled around and under them
**the sink was low enough to get that stereotypical wet patch across the front of your pants normally reserved for public restroom adventures. You would probably end up with wet feet, top of bottom, from the unavoidable splash & dump of water out of this inadequate sink.
***this essay can be found in the book Alone In The Kichen With An Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler