I’ve been a Mark Bittman fan since acquiring his How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, but my respect level kicked up a couple notches when I read this interview in the New York Times (photo credit: Kelly Doe/NYT). Though he’s a professional foodie, Bittman makes it work in a Manhattan flat with a tiny kitchen, forgoing common tools such as a toaster or food processor due to space limitations.

In this era of excess, this feature is a nice reminder that we’d all do well to make it work with what we have.