Full transcript
0:00Hi.
0:01I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
0:04Today we're going to talk about kitchens.
0:08Let's go.
0:14No matter where you live around the world, all houses have something in common.
0:19They have a kitchen.
0:20Maybe your kitchen just has one pan and one burner or maybe you have a huge kitchen with
0:26pots and pans passed down from your grandmother.
0:29Whatever the case may be, there are a lot of varieties of kitchens around the world
0:33and there's a lot of varieties of kitchens in the US.
0:36So I can't explain all US kitchens, but I can explain my kitchen.
0:41So that's what we're going to do.
0:42I'm going to take you on a little tour around my kitchen and explain all of the items that
0:47I see, all of the appliances.
0:49Maybe there's some things that are different in your country than what are in my house,
0:54but it's a good way to expand your vocabulary.
0:56Because if you spend any time in your kitchen, it's a great chance to just talk about what
1:02you're doing in English.
1:04I'm cooking an egg in my frying pan.
1:06I'm using a spatula.
1:08Talk about what you're doing.
1:10And I hope that today's lesson will give you the vocabulary to be able to do that.
1:13If you're interested in learning other household words not just the kitchen, you can check
1:17out this video that I made, 150 Household Items, and expressions, and verbs, in my previous
1:25apartment.
1:26Now we're in our new house, which is great.
1:28Or if you want to learn more about cleaning expressions, because that's something that
1:32we all have to do and you want to describe it in English, I made a video at my mother-in-law's
1:37house using a lot of cleaning expressions.
1:39I think there was 70 or 80 of them.
1:42You can watch that video up here to expand your vocabulary.
1:46Let's start by talking about some common kitchen appliances.
1:49One of the most common appliances is the fridge.
1:54Or you can say refrigerator, but this is a pretty big word so we often cut it down and
2:00just say fridge.
2:01Good news for you.
2:04In the US we have giant fridges.
2:07I've never been in any other country that had fridges as big as in the US.
2:12Maybe that's kind of typical.
2:13We like to make things super big.
2:17But on the top in my fridge we have the fridge part and on the bottom is the freezer.
2:23We'll take a look at that in just a second.
2:25It's pretty typical that in the fridge you have different shelves.
2:31It's a little bit bright on my camera.
2:33I'm sorry.
2:34And then at the bottom we call these vegetable crispers, just a crisper.
2:41We don't use that that often but it's the crisper bin.
2:44It's somewhere where you'll put your fresh vegetables, fresh fruit to keep them crisp,
2:50and that is fresh, exactly the way you want them.
2:53On the bottom of my fridge is the freezer.
2:58Sometimes the freezer will be kind of split in half and will be on one side or the other
3:03but mine is a top and bottom type of deal.
3:07So on the bottom is the freezer, which is where we keep some leftover soup, some frozen
3:15vegetables, frozen fruit, ice, ice cream.
3:19Anything that you want to keep super cold you put in the freezer.
3:22The second most common kitchen appliance is a stove and an oven.
3:29In the US we call the top of this the stove or you might say the stove top.
3:35That's where you cook things with pots and pans.
3:40Inside the oven is where you bake things.
3:44So usually there's a door on the oven and inside here there are some racks.
3:52That's what we call these things.
3:53It's a little bit hot in there so I'm not going to grab them, but there are rack.
3:58You might see a recipe that says, "Put this on the bottom rack," or, "Put this on the
4:02top rack when you're baking it," and that's referring to those kind of metal shelves inside
4:08your oven.
4:10You might here some Americans calling all of this, this whole device, the oven or call
4:17the whole thing the stove instead of separating the top is the stove, inside is the oven.
4:24Sometimes we just kind of use one of those words to talk about the whole device, so you
4:29might hear that in movies and TV shows.
4:32It's technically the stove and the oven, but you might kind of interchange those sometimes.
4:39Some technical words about the stove top is we have the knobs.
4:43There are knobs to turn on the stove.
4:48And when you are baking something in here, you need to set the temperature.
4:54In the US we use Fahrenheit.
4:57So when I turn on the oven and I click bake, the first temperature is 350 degrees, and
5:06that is in Fahrenheit.
5:10If you're cooking in the US, make sure that you know if your recipe is American, if your
5:15recipe is not from the US, if your stove is using Fahrenheit.
5:19I've never seen a stove in the US that didn't use Fahrenheit, but I know when I've baked
5:24things in other countries I had to convert everything and it was a little complicated.
5:29So don't mess up your food.
5:30Just check on the temperature.
5:32Check on what you're using for the recipe.
5:35That's all really essential.
5:37One thing also, above the stove is the microwave.
5:41This is a really typical placement for a microwave in an American kitchen, maybe in your kitchen,
5:46too.
5:47The reason why they put a microwave above the stove is it's a convenient location.
5:54But also, listen to this.
6:01What do you think that whirring sound is?
6:06It's a fan.
6:07So underneath here there's a fan.
6:09I have a light on as well.
6:10You can see that light.
6:14And that fan is going to help to suck up all of the smells, and steam, and anything that
6:22you're cooking here.
6:23It's going to help that not spread out throughout the rest of the house.
6:27So in my old apartment, we didn't have a microwave and there was no fan above our stove.
6:33So whenever we cooked something, our entire house got so hot and it smelled so strongly
6:40like whatever we were cooking.
6:42Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.
6:44But, it's really nice to have a fan so that all the smells and all the steam can get sucked
6:50up and the rest of your house isn't completely humid from your cooking.
6:55The last common item in an American kitchen is a dishwasher.
7:00I love the dishwasher so much.
7:03In our old apartment, we didn't have a dishwasher and we bought this tabletop dishwasher.
7:08It was so amazing.
7:10If you live in a place where you're always hand washing dishes, I respect you a lot because
7:17that is tough work, especially when you're cooking a lot.
7:20We cook a lot at home.
7:22When you have kids, it is not easy to spend time doing the dishes by hand.
7:27So you can do the dishes by hand or you could use a dishwasher.
7:31Yes, thank you, dishwasher for existing.
7:34So inside the dishwasher there are racks.
7:37You might recognize that word from the oven.
7:41Inside the oven there are oven racks and there are racks in here as well.
7:45Something you might notice is on some dishes, on the bottom ... This one doesn't say it.
7:52It might just say dishwasher safe, but on some dishes they might say top rack safe only.
7:59For example, we have these cool little bamboo bowls that we use for Theo, our two-year-old,
8:08and we use them, too.
8:11There's some plates to go along with it.
8:13These are our dirty dishes.
8:15But when I bought these, it said top rack safe only.
8:21That's because there's also a bottom rack.
8:25And this rack usually gets a little bit hotter, and it's going to have a little more pressure.
8:32It's just going to be a little bit more intense for whatever you're washing.
8:37So some things might say top rack safe only.
8:40And if I'm not sure, sometimes I just put it on the top rack just to be careful with
8:45it.
8:46Next, I'd like to just simply go around the kitchen and talk about what's out on the counter,
8:51the things that are visible, and then we're going to go into the cupboards and into to
8:57drawers and discuss what's in there.
8:59It could be appliances, could be things you eat with.
9:01It could be food.
9:04Let's start on the counter.
9:05So this is the counter.
9:08Simple word.
9:09Or you might call it the countertop.
9:10This is where we prepare food.
9:12It's where we set out food.
9:15This countertop is kind of unusual.
9:17Usually you'll see laminate counters, which we'll take a look at over here.
9:21You might be able to see a little bit right here.
9:23Kind of like a plastic-type surface.
9:27Or you might see granite countertops.
9:29That's stone.
9:31It's really nice.
9:32But this is a wood block.
9:37The family who lived in this house before us, the woman was a professional baker so
9:42she had this wooden block to replace the old countertop and now we get to use it, which
9:49is pretty cool.
9:51So it's kind of unusual to see a big wooden block like that but usually you'll have a
9:55big counter where you can prepare food.
9:57And this is one is especially big, which is wonderful, because in our old apartment we
10:00had a small counter space for preparing food and now we can prepare everything, which is
10:05great.
10:06The next thing that you'll see on this counter is a fruit stand.
10:12We have some fruit hanging out here and some fruit bowls.
10:16Then, Dan's precious coffee maker.
10:18If you've been watching my channel for a while, you know that I don't drink coffee but Dan
10:25loves it.
10:26So we'll get to what I have over here.
10:27So we have the coffee maker.
10:31Your coffee maker might look a little more traditional than this, but this is Dan's special
10:36thing.
10:38Then we have the paper towel stand.
10:42Sometimes this paper towel stand might be underneath a counter and it kind of attaches
10:48to the bottom of the counter and you can roll it out underneath a shelf, something like
10:53that, but ours just is a standalone paper towel rack.
10:59And at the sink we got a couple other things, so let's go take a look.
11:02This is our sink where we wash things, where we fill up water.
11:07All of those great things happen.
11:08At most sinks you'll see dish soap.
11:13It's quite clear.
11:15Liquid dish soap.
11:16It's easy to understand.
11:17This is what you're going to use when you're hand washing dishes.
11:22You do not, do not, want to put dish soap into your dishwasher.
11:30If you put dish soap, and it usually says something about ... Yes, dish soap for hand
11:38washing dishes that uses biodegradable, bio-based formula, blah, blah, blah.
11:42So it says hand washing.
11:44That's your key.
11:46If I put this in my dishwasher, our house would be covered in bubbles.
11:51So please don't do this unless you want to have some fun experiment.
11:56There is specific soap you put in the dishwasher.
12:01It might be a little pod like this or it's ... Usually we buy just powder that you put
12:09in the dishwasher.
12:10It's a little box that has dish washing soap.
12:15So make sure that you use dishwasher soap.
12:19It's for washing your dishes in the dishwasher in the right place, and you use this in the
12:23right place.
12:25Little friendly word of warning.
12:26So usually at the counter, when you're washing dishes, you'll find some kind of towel.
12:31We don't use sponges, but you might find a sponge.
12:35This is like a reusable, cool little microfiber towel.
12:39We have a bunch of these, and that's what we use to hand wash dishes.
12:43You might also find ... This is called steel wool.
12:47It's just a little piece of metal mushed up together.
12:53You can use it to kind of scrape some hard spots on pans or pots.
12:58You'll also see a faucet.
13:00This is the faucet.
13:02And hot water, cold water.
13:06We're so lucky we're living in the 21st century we can just have hot and cold water whenever
13:10we want.
13:11It's amazing.
13:12Our sink also has this cool little thing.
13:15I wonder if this exists in your country.
13:18I'm going to turn on the water, and then I'm going to turn this.
13:24Whoa.
13:25Isn't that cool?
13:27I'm amazed.
13:28This is just like a little sprayer so you can spray the sink out or you can spray a
13:36dish.
13:38I once played a terrible prank on my dad for April Fools' Day because if ... This has a
13:47little button on the side, and I put a rubber band around it so it was always pressed.
13:56When you turn on the water, usually it comes out here, but if this button is pressed, it
14:05will come out of the sprayer automatically.
14:10So I had a rubber band around it.
14:12And in the morning, he went to the sink and he turned on the water.
14:16You can imagine what happened.
14:18It didn't come out here.
14:19It came out here and went ... and sprayed him.
14:24It was a good prank.
14:25And it was April Fools' Day, so it's all right.
14:27But, I thought that was a pretty clever moment when I was in high school, so watch out for
14:32rubber bands around your sprayer.
14:36There's also hand soap.
14:37This is for your hands.
14:39That's quite obvious.
14:41Usually we use liquid hand soap.
14:43You might see people use a bar of soap, but that's pretty unusual.
14:46I am curious in your country if you use bar soap or liquid soap like that.
14:52Let's continue on to the side and see some other things that are on the counter.
14:56You might be wondering what this giant metal tub is.
15:00Well, this not common in most American households, but I'm a water snob and I love clean, pure
15:12water.
15:13In the US, it's totally fine to drink tap water.
15:17That's water that comes from the faucet.
15:19It's not a problem I'd say 98% of places in the US.
15:26You can drink the tap water.
15:28And here, you can drink the tap water.
15:29It's completely fine.
15:31But I think it tastes very strongly like chlorine and just kind of chemicals.
15:38So we have this water filter, and we use this glass jar, take the tap water, and pour in
15:46here.
15:47It has some huge filters.
15:50This is called like a gravitational long filter device.
15:55I forget the technical term for it.
15:57But, it doesn't filter it automatically.
15:59It takes maybe two hours to filter so we're always pouring water in there.
16:04It stores the water down here, and it tastes amazing.
16:07So if you ever come to my house, drink some water.
16:11All right.
16:12Another part of this counter is ... This is kind of a fancy, fancy-shmancy device, but
16:18I got for Dan one year for Christmas because he likes to drink sparkling water.
16:23I felt like it was a little bit wasteful to buy cans of sparkling water so I bought this
16:32soda stream device.
16:34It's pretty nifty.
16:35So there's a bottle, a specific bottle, that goes with this machine.
16:39And you fill the bottle with water.
16:41You put it in here, and it just carbonates the water, so it makes it sparkly.
16:47You can do it as much as you want.
16:48You can use your own water, and it's kind of an endless thing.
16:53Then when your carbonation device is empty, you can just return it and they recycle it.
17:00It's a really cool system.
17:01Anyway, if you drink a lot of sparkling water, check it out.
17:04Well, the next thing is a toaster.
17:07You might have this in your house or maybe you don't.
17:09In my other video, 150 Household Items, we had a toaster oven.
17:14That's with a door, and you have to lay everything flat.
17:18You can also use it like an oven.
17:19It's kind of like a mini oven.
17:21But In this house we decided to get a toaster, just a regular toaster, that has slots at
17:27the top.
17:28Then we have Dan's coffee grinder, more coffee devices.
17:33And here is my section.
17:34This is the tea section.
17:36I have a lovely teapot, some tea strainers, a couple things of tea right here.
17:43I have another drawer that's got lots of fun tea.
17:47If you drink tea in your country, I would love to try tea from your country.
17:53That's always the thing that I love to try.
17:55I love to try lots of stuff when I travel.
17:57But whenever I travel, I love to try the kind of traditional food and also the kinds of
18:02tea that people drink around the world.
18:05So I'm always curious what kind of things that other people drink.
18:08My PO Box is in the description if you want to send me any.
18:11All right.
18:12We are back at the stove top.
18:14But on the stove top there is something I didn't mention, and that's a tea kettle for
18:18heating water.
18:20Pretty clear it's for my tea or for something else if you want to just heat up some water.
18:25Got a cool little thermometer on the top so that you can see how hot it is because you
18:31don't want to overheat your green tea.
18:34It must be the perfect temperature.
18:36Maybe some people don't care, but I do.
18:38And finally, before we go into the cupboards and the drawers, I'd like to end at this piece
18:44of the counter which has some important elements for cooking.
18:48We have some cutting boards.
18:50These are wooden cutting boards that we have here, and this kind of laminate wood cutting
18:57board here, and some oven mitts.
19:00So this is a flat oven mitt and this is an actual mitt, like a mitten, that you can use
19:08to protect your hands.
19:10On this little tray ... Not everybody has this.
19:12This is just something that we do for convenience.
19:15We have some common items that we use when we're cooking, like olive oil, or honey, or
19:19salt and paper, or my prenatal vitamin for our baby, some chopsticks, some knives, and
19:27some kitchen scissors.
19:29I'm curious if you use scissors in the kitchen.
19:32We use scissors a lot, but I feel like growing up my parents didn't use scissors that much
19:39in the kitchen.
19:40So maybe it's kind of a more modern thing.
19:43I'm not sure.
19:44Do you use scissors in the kitchen?
19:46Next, let's take a look at some of the dry goods, some things in cupboards, some different
19:52appliances, and things that are put away.
19:54These shelves are quite high, as you can see.
19:57But up here we have some dry goods.
20:00Dry goods are any kind of food that doesn't need to be refrigerated.
20:04So for us, that's pasta, or couscous, or quinoa, the types of things that don't need to be
20:11refrigerated.
20:12We have some alcohol.
20:13I was actually using that to make some apple cider spiked with rum, not for me, unfortunately,
20:23because I'm pregnant, but for our friends for our pumpkin party we had.
20:28Here is a little bit messy, but it's all right.
20:31We have cookbooks.
20:32A lot of kitchens have cookbooks.
20:33You probably do, too.
20:34If you have any favorite cookbooks, please recommend them.
20:37I always love browsing through cookbooks.
20:42And at the end of every year for Christmas I usually buy a new cookbook.
20:47We have just a couple here, but it's always nice to start the year with new recipes and
20:53new ideas.
20:54So if you have any recommendations, let me know.
20:56I have some cookbooks.
20:57This is my personal cookbook.
20:59Not really my recipes but these are just recipes that I have written down in a little notebook.
21:05We also have some other ... These are mainly knickknacks, just kind of for display.
21:09It's not really for the kitchen.
21:10But here we have other dry goods.
21:13These dry goods are kind of our snacks goods.
21:17So we try to have healthy snacks, especially with a two-year-old who always wants snacks.
21:23I don't want to give him something unhealthy all the time so we always try to have a lot
21:27of nuts available.
21:29So in these different jars ... These are usually called mason jars.
21:35It's the brand of jar but we use it as just a name of it.
21:40It's a mason jar or you could say it's a glass jar.
21:43It has this type of lid that's kind of two-piece.
21:47It's got two pieces to it.
21:50So we usually store different peanuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, Brazil nuts, popcorn
22:00seeds, or sunflower seeds, or raisins, anything that's kind of a healthy snack we try to put
22:09on this shelf.
22:10All right.
22:11Let's go back to the kitchen, which is just right here, and we're going to take a look
22:14inside some of the cupboards to look at some other appliances and things that might be
22:18hiding.
22:19Pretty much every kitchen has something that you eat on, right?
22:22So we have some small plates.
22:25There's not really a fancy term for these.
22:27You might have really small plates that are called saucers.
22:31We don't have these, but you can use it to put like a teacup on.
22:36And it usually has a little rim on the inside, some place where you can safely set your teacup.
22:44This is not a saucer.
22:47This is just a small plate for small portions of food.
22:50Then we also have some big plates, some larger plates.
22:57We do have bowls, but, as you saw, they are dirty.
23:00All of our bowls are dirty.
23:01We usually go through bowls really quickly because, especially now, it's a little bit
23:06colder outside so we eat a lot of soup in our house and we finish all of our bowls pretty
23:12quickly.
23:13So we do have bowls.
23:15I'm sure you know what bowls are, though, so no problem.
23:17On this shelf as well we have some mugs, some more mugs in here.
23:22I love mugs.
23:24And some glasses or just some cups.
23:28You can call this ... It is glass.
23:31It is made of glass, but you can also call it just a cup.
23:36There's some smaller cups.
23:38There's some beer glasses.
23:40This is the right size for drinking beer according to Dan.
23:43I don't know.
23:44I'm not a big fan of beer.
23:46But we also have up here a strainer.
23:51Sorry.
23:52I'm a little bit low here because these shelves are really high.
23:58This is a strainer.
23:59We put this in the sink to wash our fruit and vegetables.
24:03Super handy.
24:04You probably have something like that in your kitchen.
24:06And we just have some other coffee things, like a hand grinder.
24:13Dan loves grinding coffee by hand, or a pour over for coffee.
24:18This is kind of the miscellaneous coffee supplies.
24:21There's a French press up there, other little devices.
24:25All right.
24:26Let's go to this shelf over here.
24:29Okay, I'm just going to sit up on the counter because it's a little bit awkward to film
24:34a high spot and I'm down here and I'm showing this.
24:37So, I'm siting on the counter.
24:39No judging.
24:40All right.
24:41Up here we have our wine glasses.
24:44Your wine glasses might have a stem.
24:49A stem is that part on the bottom.
24:51A stem is the word that you use with a flower.
24:55There's a flower, and then under the flower is a stem and it looks like that.
24:59But, these wine glasses do not have a stem.
25:01We have some little fancy glasses, too.
25:05And on this shelf is generally just knickknacks.
25:09This is a point of contention in our relationship.
25:14Whenever Dan has a really cool beer glass, he wants to keep it because it looks cool.
25:20But I feel like when you display too many beer glasses it kind of looks bad.
25:29Kind of looks like you drink too much alcohol.
25:32And Dan doesn't drink that much alcohol, but when you display all of it, it's not that
25:38great, I think.
25:39Anyway, so I'm always secretly recycling them.
25:43Shh.
25:44Don't tell him.
25:45Actually, he knows.
25:46He knows.
25:47Sometimes he'll look up and say, "Hey, where'd that go?
25:49Oh.
25:50Okay.
25:51I guess there were too many."
25:52So these are some glasses that Dan thinks are super cool.
25:55All right.
25:56Now we're going to go around the kitchen drawer by drawer.
25:58I'm going to pull some things out.
25:59You're going to see inside the drawers of kitchen.
26:03Not so clean, but maybe yours is not so clean either.
26:06All right.
26:07Inside this drawer there are all of our lids for our pots and pans.
26:11We haven't looked at our pots and pans yet.
26:14We'll take a look at those in a moment.
26:15They're kind of hanging up in an awkward spot to film.
26:17But we have like a lid rack so that you can hold all of the lids.
26:23It's so convenient.
26:24I really like having that.
26:26Down here we have a lot of our baking things.
26:29So there's cookie sheets or baking sheets.
26:36You can use these for baking cookies, for baking french fries, whatever you want to
26:42cook, baking vegetables.
26:43We also have a ... This is technically called a cooling rack.
26:48So you can bake cookies and set them here.
26:51And because there is some space, it will cool the cookies and they won't get too moist.
26:57It'll cool evenly.
26:59But I also use this for baking.
27:01It fits on the sheet perfectly.
27:04I use it when maybe we're baking something that has a lot of grease, like chicken wings,
27:10something that has a lot of grease and I don't want my food cooking in the grease.
27:13I'll put that up here and then the grease will fall down underneath onto the pan.
27:18And it's a little bit healthier and also tastes good for some things to cook it like that.
27:22Some other baking items that are under here are different pans for baking different items.
27:30So this is a bread pan but we also have different casserole dishes.
27:36This is a casserole dish.
27:38It's pretty common in the US to eat casseroles.
27:42I don't know if I've ever actually made one myself.
27:46Maybe that's more of my parent's generation making a casserole.
27:49I don't know.
27:50Maybe in colder places in the US they make casseroles.
27:53It's basically just throwing everything in, maybe some potatoes, maybe some paste, some
27:59cheese, some broccoli, throwing maybe some meat and you just kind of bake it together.
28:06It's kind of like a strange lasagna if you can imagine this kind of idea.
28:12It's kind of an easy thing to make.
28:13So this is a casserole dish, but I use it for other things, maybe for brownies or for
28:20baking vegetables.
28:22I use it for a lot of different things.
28:24This one is a glass baking dish.
28:27Some people might actually call it by the brand name.
28:30The brand name is Pyrex.
28:32That's a really common brand name for baking items.
28:37Sometimes we use that to describe it.
28:39So instead of saying the glass dish we might say the Pyrex dish.
28:45Not everyone's going to use that.
28:46They might just say the glass dish but you might occasionally hear that, and that's just
28:50the brand name being used for the item.
28:52Even if it's not that brand name but it's that same idea, it's a glass dish, you might
28:57hear that used.
28:58Something else that I dug out from the back of this shelf are two silicone muffin tins.
29:07Now, you might have ... It's more likely to have metal muffin tins, but I like to make
29:15muffins and it's really annoying to get them out of the metal muffin tin, and this you
29:23can use less oil on it.
29:25It just comes out so easily.
29:28It's really great and it lasts for a long time.
29:31It's very easy to clean.
29:32So I have these silicone muffin tins.
29:35You might use that or just something to make muffins with.
29:40Also in this drawer is a strainer.
29:43Or, this is not a strainer.
29:45This is a steamer, a steamer.
29:47We already saw the strainer, which was up in the cupboard, and we use that to wash the
29:52vegetables.
29:53This steamer is going to fold up.
29:58It's supposed to fold up.
30:01You can put that in a pan or a pot of steaming water and you can steam broccoli, you can
30:07steam green beans, you can steam vegetables in this really easily, steam shrimp.
30:13I use that for all of these things.
30:14I use this steamer basket.
30:17I think these steamer baskets, maybe they're pretty common around the world, but this folding
30:22metal type, I've had a couple of them and they always fall apart.
30:29The little leaves on them always fall off, even if it's a pretty good, brand name steamer
30:38basket.
30:39So I'm curious in your country if you use this type of thing and if you have better
30:43quality ones.
30:44It's cool that it can fold up, but sometimes the little leaves get stuck.
30:49Okay, that worked pretty well.
30:52But maybe it's just because I have a two-year-old.
30:55He likes to pull them off and then you find them around the house.
30:59Not very handy when you have a two-year-old.
31:00Next, lets move on from this cabinet and go to these drawers.
31:06A cabinet is going to open like this, like a door, and a drawer, it's a tricky word to
31:13say, is going to open like this.
31:15Well, let's start at the top.
31:17At the top we have silverware.
31:21Some people call this flatware.
31:24It's kind of a restaurant word.
31:29When we're talking about forks, spoons, butter knives, chopsticks, steak knives, children's
31:42stuff, when we're talking about these items that you put on the table when you eat, the
31:50most common word is silverware.
31:52It doesn't need to be actually made of silver.
31:56Usually they're not because that takes a lot of work to keep up.
32:00But we usually call that silverware.
32:01At a restaurant, you might hear the restaurant staff say flatware.
32:07Or maybe if you work in a really fancy restaurant or ... Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard
32:13a family call it flatware at home.
32:16I just remember in my home ec class ... Home ec is home economics where you learn about
32:23baking, and sewing, and all those kinds of things in high school.
32:28In my home ec class, I remember our our home ec teacher said, "In this class you will not
32:33call it silverware, you will call it flatware," and everyone kind of laughed a little bit
32:38like, "Who says that?
32:39That's so fancy."
32:41But in her class we had to call it flatware, but I've never used that term since.
32:45So if you're from the US or you have American friends, I'm curious if you've ever heard
32:51flatware in that kind of casual situation.
32:54All right.
32:55In the next drawer we have some other helpful items for baking and cooking.
32:59This is kind of our random drawer.
33:04Everyone has stuff like that.
33:05Here we have teaspoons and tablespoons.
33:08So as I mentioned, ovens use ... Maybe I didn't mention this but ovens use Fahrenheit in the
33:15US.
33:16And instead of using milliliters, and liters, and these kind of easy measurements, we decided
33:21to do things the hard way in the US and use tablespoons, which is this measurement or
33:31this one here, this big circle, or teaspoons, which are these.
33:40There's various increments, half a teaspoon, a forth of a teaspoon, an eighth of a teaspoon.
33:46Yeah.
33:47If you're using spices, or salt, or you're baking, that's really essential.
33:53If you're cooking something, like you're making a soup, I just throw stuff in.
33:59I don't usually measure it, but that's a personal preference.
34:02We also have some tongs.
34:06Great for picking up out things when you're cooking them, like corn, when you're boiling
34:11corn.
34:12Great to have this.
34:13We also have a thermometer.
34:16This is a meat thermometer.
34:18I guess you could use it for water, too, or for soup, other things, but we usually use
34:24this for meat.
34:25On the back of the thermometer it says C/F, and that's Celsius of Fahrenheit.
34:33So if you buy a meat thermometer in the US, make sure that you have the right button clicked.
34:40And if you're thinking about the temperature, what temperature should pork be in Celsius,
34:48make sure that you're showing the Celsius number.
34:51I've thought about that a lot because sometimes the wrong one is clicked and in my head I'm
34:56thinking the Fahrenheit number but it's showing the Celsius number and it's just mixed up.
35:01So make sure that don't get that wrong, especially with meat.
35:03We also have a meat pounder for pounding chicken, or steak, or whatever you want to get to be
35:12more tender.
35:13You might see this also called a tenderizer.
35:17It has some knobs on the top, a tenderizer, but it's for pounding meat.
35:24All right.
35:26Let's go to the next drawer.
35:27In this drawer we have other random thing.
35:31This is a box of drink accessories.
35:35So if you want to make yourself a shot of some alcohol, if you want to open some wine,
35:41we have a wine opener.
35:44There's also a corkscrew.
35:47That's this little device is a corkscrew.
35:51So you need to put that into the cork, turn it, and then you can use the wine opener for
35:57this, or you could ... This is a really old one.
36:01But you could use a bottle opener to open beer or cider, whatever you're drinking out
36:07of the bottle.
36:08This is a bottle opener and this is a wine opener.
36:11I also have some wine stoppers because we don't drink that much wine.
36:17And if we have a bottle of wine, we don't finish it in one day.
36:21So it's nice to kind of pump the air out.
36:27Our two-year-old likes to play with this a lot, likes to pump the air out.
36:31And you put the stopper in and it keeps your wine fresh for longer.
36:34Pretty handy little thing.
36:35We also have a knife sharpener.
36:38This is for our nice, sharp knives, not the steak knives.
36:43The steak knives, they are serrated.
36:47Serrated means they have little like U marks, little cuts in them.
36:54Serrated knives are great for cutting tomatoes, or steak, things like this.
36:59But you cannot sharpen, at least as far as I know.
37:03You can't sharpen serrated knives, so this is for our chopping knife or some other knives
37:10that have a smooth blade.
37:12I got this fun little device recently.
37:14Do you know what this is?
37:16Can you guess?
37:23You put a hard boiled egg inside this.
37:27And when you push it down, these little strings will cut the egg.
37:31I bought this because I saw a toddler using this to cut hard boiled eggs, and I thought,
37:38"My two-year-old is going to love this."
37:41So I made a bunch of hard boiled eggs and I peeled them, and he helped me cut them with
37:45this.
37:46It was a hit.
37:47It worked well.
37:48All right.
37:49In this final drawer we have not many options that you can actually see, but these are Tupperware.
37:55We have some glass Tupperware.
37:57Again, you could say Pyrex dishes.
38:01Technically you could bake, not with the lid, but you could bake something in this because
38:06it's glass and it's meant for baking.
38:09Usually we have a full drawer of these Tupperware dishes but we don't have a full drawer of
38:15them right now because we've recently been making a lot of soup.
38:20And as you saw in our freezer, we have a lot of leftover soup containers.
38:25So when we make soup, maybe chili, we make a lot, and then put some in the freezer, and
38:30we use those Tupperware containers to store it.
38:34And then the next week when we want soup, we don't have to make it.
38:37You just pull it out of the freezer and bam!
38:39You got dinner.
38:40All right.
38:41Let's move on to the next drawer.
38:43These cabinets are under our sink.
38:46So you can see kind of the sink basins are here.
38:49And usually under the sink is where you keep extra soap, maybe some cleaning supplies.
38:55We have trash bags, extra trash bags, extra little cleaning rags.
39:01It's kind of like a cleaning section.
39:04I'm curious what are some things that you put underneath your kitchen sink.
39:10This is usually where in the US you'll find cleaning supplies.
39:15We also have a couple appliances.
39:16This is the blender.
39:19We can blend soups.
39:21We can blend smoothies.
39:22You can blend apple sauce, whatever you're making in there.
39:25And also rice cooker.
39:27Rice cookers are not common kitchen appliances in the US, but I don't know why not because
39:33they're so handy.
39:34It's so convenient.
39:36We use ours for cooking rice.
39:38We use it for steaming some potatoes, things that take a long time.
39:43And it also doubles as a slow cooker.
39:48So this is a special rice cooker that has a slow cooker button.
39:55You can just put whatever you want to slow cook.
39:59I'm not sure if this is a type cuisine that common in other places but in the US it's
40:04really common to cook things in a slow cooker.
40:08A lot of Americans will not have a rice cooker but they will have a slow cooker.
40:12It looks pretty similar.
40:14Usually it has a glass lid that you can take off, but it's kind of heavy duty pot.
40:20It's electric, and you can put usually soup ingredient.
40:25You can put vegetables and broth and you just push the button.
40:30And after eight hours, usually you go to work, and you come home, and it's all finished,
40:36and you didn't have to do anything.
40:37It's so great.
40:39So you can use it as a slow cooker.
40:40If you've never heard of a slow cooker, I recommend looking up some recipes with it.
40:47It's really interesting because slow cookers have been around for a long time but the idea
40:53of having a good meal cooked without much time in the kitchen has always been popular.
41:02So a lot of people use slow cookers over all generations.
41:06It's a pretty cool device to have.
41:08And the next cabinet, pretty nifty.
41:11See how it works.
41:12This opens and, whoa!
41:15This spins.
41:16When we first saw this house, I thought, "Oh, this so cool.
41:20I can't wait to use this."
41:22The bottom spins, too.
41:25This is just where we keep our dry goods.
41:27So you saw some of the dry goods up on the shelf.
41:30Those are just kind of some pretty ones for display.
41:32We do eat those, but it just kind of looks cool.
41:36In here is where we keep beans, and vinegar, and tomato paste, and rice, and all of those
41:41things that we use for cooking but we don't need to keep them on the counter.
41:47A lot of people in the US will have a pantry.
41:51This is like a closet in your kitchen where you can keep all of these types of things.
41:58In this house we don't have a pantry so we have this lazy Susan is the term.
42:05It's a rolling cabinet.
42:08It could just be a circle that you put a pot on and that circle spins.
42:12That's called a lazy Susan.
42:14You might see this at restaurants.
42:15You might have it on your kitchen table.
42:18But this is also called a lazy Susan.
42:20I don't know why.
42:21Poor Susan.
42:22I'm sorry if your name's Susan.
42:23You're not lazy.
42:25It's just a term for this type of cool spinning shelf, and it's really helpful for being able
42:33to access a lot of stuff and make the most of your space.
42:36We're almost finished.
42:37Hurrah!
42:38These are the last drawers in my kitchen.
42:41In these drawers we have our most used kitchen utensils.
42:45I'd like to go through these because they might be similar to what you have in your
42:48house.
42:50First we have a simple spoon.
42:52This is for stirring things that we're cooking.
42:55This is a garlic press.
42:57Put your garlic in here.
43:00When you press it down, the garlic comes out those holes and it's nice and fine and juicy.
43:05It's really great.
43:06I hate cleaning this, but it's a really handy device.
43:09Then we have a whisk.
43:11This is a plastic whisk.
43:12If you can see it, it's a plastic whisk, but a lot of whisks are metal.
43:18They might have a metal part here to it.
43:22This is a soup ladle.
43:26You can ladle.
43:27We can use it as a verb, too.
43:28I'm ladling the soup with the soup ladle.
43:32This is a soup ladle.
43:34You might call this too a soup spoon, but you most likely hear it called a ladle.
43:40Next, this is just a little scraper for our rice cooker.
43:46This came with it, and I like to scoop up the rice with it.
43:49This isn't so common in other American households.
43:51But if you have a rice cooker, you probably have something like this.
43:54We also have a can opener.
43:56This is a manual can opener, so you have to do this by hand.
44:02When I was growing up, my parents had an electric can opener, and it was a little device that
44:06stuck on one of our cupboards.
44:09They attached a can to it with a magnet and just pushed a button and it automatically
44:14opened the can.
44:15Pretty cool.
44:16Actually, our cat, the cat that we don't have anymore, he's 18 years old.
44:21He passed away a couple years ago.
44:23But the cat that I grew up with, he loved that electric can opener because my dad would
44:28often open cans of tuna with the can opener.
44:32So every time my cat heard the can opener he would run downstairs and wait.
44:38Please, please, I want tuna.
44:40Please.
44:41And usually my dad would give him some of the juice or a little piece or something.
44:44But that sound that electric can opener was linked in the cat's mind with yummy food.
44:50All right.
44:51Next we have some more tongs.
44:52These are shorter tongs, and a vegetable peeler.
44:56I like this kind of vegetable peeler that has this U shape and the peeler is across
45:03the top.
45:04But in a lot of houses in the US, you're going to see a flat vegetable peeler and then the
45:10blade kind of comes out like a knife.
45:13I like this kind better.
45:14I think it's easier to use, but maybe you have something different in your house.
45:18We have a spatula.
45:20Actually, we have two spatulas.
45:23This is a silicone spatula and this is a metal spatula.
45:29We have some more kitchen scissors.
45:36This is another spatula, but we could use it for stirring or scrapping.
45:43So you might call it a scraper.
45:46You might call it a spatula.
45:48I think most people would probably call it a spatula even though technically this, this
45:54device that's flat, it's flatter, you can flip eggs, you can flip things with this spatula,
46:02and this one is more for mixing, like if you're mixing some bread dough.
46:07Or if you're mixing something, you might be more likely to use this, but we'd still call
46:11this a spatula.
46:12If I think of another name for this I'll right it here, but I'm pretty sure we just call
46:17this a spatula.
46:18I also have a lighter.
46:20Hurrah!
46:21Great for lighting candles and whatnot.
46:24Let's go to the next drawer.
46:25Here are all of our spices.
46:28If you watched our other video from our old apartment, 150 Household Items, that I mentioned
46:35a couple times, in our old apartment, we used to have all of our spices on a shelf.
46:41Personally, I prefer that because you can see the names of all the spices and you don't
46:47have to ... All of these, all I see is the black lid.
46:51So I have to often pick up each one and see what is this, what is this, what is this.
46:56So I feel like in the future we'll probably have a more useful way to store our spices.
47:04Maybe we'll put them on a shelf.
47:05But for now, they are in this drawer with some tea and some other tea filters, other
47:11types of drink things.
47:12But this is where we store our spices.
47:15Then in the bottom drawer ... This is kind of a weird angle to show you.
47:20But in the bottom drawer are all of our other things that we need in the kitchen.
47:26So there are small plastic bags.
47:30Sometimes we use the brand name for this, this type of bag, and we'll call this a Ziploc
47:37bag.
47:38This is not a brand name Ziploc bag, but some people call it that, even though you might
47:46not actually use that brand.
47:48Ziploc is the brand.
47:50But you might just use a generic or a store brand name type thing.
47:54So we have some plastic bags.
47:56I have some reusable cloth bags, some reusable, sealable plastic bags.
48:03I like to use these for cheese because it's just nice to have something that you can use
48:10again and again.
48:12There's also some extra garbage bags in here.
48:16I'm curious, what do you think this is called in English?
48:21There are plenty of names.
48:25But in the US we just call this plastic wrap.
48:29Some people might say cling wrap.
48:31I'm sure there are other names for this.
48:34But putting plastic wrap on something, I've tried a lot of different natural methods for
48:40using instead of plastic wrap, but really, plastic wrap is so handy.
48:46It's so handy to use.
48:48We also have in here aluminum foil.
48:55Aluminum foil, and we use that whole name, aluminum foil.
49:01Might put this on a dish when you're baking it.
49:05You might put it over the dish to keep it warm.
49:07It's a lot of different uses for that.
49:09I also have some wax paper or parchment paper.
49:16Technically this is not wax paper.
49:18You'll see in the store a different item for wax paper but some people call it wax paper.
49:23It's technically parchment paper.
49:25But this is what you can put down on your cookie sheet on your baking sheet so that
49:31you don't have to clean it up that much.
49:34So usually, I like to put this paper on my baking sheet to just lessen the mess afterwards.
49:43And last but not least are the pots and pans, essential for cooking.
49:52Mine are hung up really high.
49:53Right now I'm standing on a chair.
49:55These are up here but it's really nice to be able to have them hung up.
50:02In our kitchen, we don't have a specific place where we want to put these.
50:08As you can see, all of our drawers are full of other things so it's really handy to have
50:14these little hooks up here.
50:16If somebody tall comes to our house, they just have to watch out and not hit their head.
50:20So we hang up our pots, little pots.
50:24These are stainless steel pots, stainless steel pans, and we also have a nonstick pan.
50:35That's the coating that's on here is going to help it to not stick.
50:40On this side, this type of ... I'll take it off so you can see.
50:45This is called a wok.
50:48You're maybe familiar with this type of item.
50:51This is an old wok.
50:52It's supposed to be nonstick but it is quite old so it's not exactly nonstick anymore.
50:57But, all of these are pots and pans.
51:02You might also hear something like this get called a sauce pan because it's small.
51:09Some people call that a sauce pan.
51:11I just call it a pot, a small pot, or a pan.
51:19So there's simple words.
51:20There's more complex words.
51:22I'm sure there's regional words for these types of things but I hope that it will help
51:25give you kind of a base for your vocabulary.
51:28Thank you so much for joining me for this kitchen vocabulary lesson.
51:33It also helped me to have an excuse to clean the kitchen really well.
51:38My kitchen doesn't usually look like this.
51:41So thank you for giving me that opportunity.
51:43I hope that this lesson helped you to expand your vocabulary.
51:46And now I want to ask you a question.
51:48What are some kitchen items that I didn't mention?
51:52Or maybe you have some things in your kitchen that don't exist in American kitchens.
51:57Let me know in the comments, and make sure that you read other students' comments as
52:00well because you can just keep expanding your vocabulary.
52:03Thanks so much for joining me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here
52:09on my YouTube channel.
52:10Bye.
52:12The next step is to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
52:18Speaker.
52:19You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.
52:23Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.
52:26Thanks so much.
52:28Bye.