I once tried to document every object in my kitchen and justify its existence. The project died in the drawer of miscellaneous lids, which turned out to be philosophically indefensible and also necessary. But I got through the rest, and the count came to thirty-one.
The list
One heavy pan. One light pan. One pot. One kettle. One rice cooker, which I resisted for a year and now consider the most useful object I own. One chopping board, wooden, oiled twice a year. One good knife, one paring knife, one bread knife I use for tomatoes.
Two bowls, four plates, four glasses, two mugs. A fish slice, a serving spoon, a ladle, a spatula, a whisk I use perhaps four times a year. A sieve. A grater. A can opener. Scales. A dripper and a paper filter box. A jar of wooden spoons that has somehow reached five spoons despite my only ever buying two.
What the exercise actually taught me
Not that I should own less. The count is not the point and I am not interested in getting it to twenty. What the exercise taught me is that the objects I resented were, almost without exception, the ones I had bought in anticipation of a version of myself who did not arrive. The pasta machine. The mandoline. The stand mixer I moved across a border.
Every one of those was bought for the cook I imagined becoming. The thirty-one things are for the cook I am, who makes about four meals and makes them well.
The lids
Still there. Still miscellaneous. I have made peace with it.