a few small things.

something old, something new, something you can make yourself in two minutes flat.

In case any one needs or enjoys some very specific recommendations, here are a few things I’ve been using lately that make everyday life a little easier. There’s the very best in a long line of compost solutions, a life-changing toothpaste accessory, and a DIY kitchen sponge holder that beats anything you can buy in a store. More details than anyone asked for, below.

a vintage refrigerator box for food scraps:

Ever since moving to Brooklyn, James and I have been freezing our food scraps before they go into the compost bin. In the early years, our routine included toting those frozen scraps to farmers’ markets once a week. For awhile, we had a large lidded plastic bucket that we brought to and fro. When that developed an irreparable crack, we used brown paper bags, interspersed with experiments in green compostable bags. For the past several years, we’ve been using a shallow enamel bowl that I bought for a few dollars at a thrift store. In our last apartment, our brown bins—the curbside composting bins used by New York City—were at the foot of our stoop. Our scraps didn’t have to travel far, and we didn’t have to store them for a full week, but we still found it less smelly and more pleasant to freeze them in between trips to the bin.

Now that we need to tote our food scraps through the elevator to the collection bins kept on the building’s bottom floor, we decided a slightly more buttoned up approach might be in order. Carrying a bowl filled to the brim with banana peels and coffee grinds, not to mention the mauled remains of a five-year-old’s lunch, felt like it might be a startling way to make our new neighbors’ acquaintance.

Enter the enamel refrigerator box. These rectangular boxes, the antecedent to built-in refrigerator drawers, are typically rectangular in shape which makes them easy to store. They also typically come with a lid, which is nice not only for new neighbors, but for all of us, whether the bin is in the freezer or on the counter.

Caveat: Our box is on the larger size—14 x 9 x 4 inches—and I wouldn’t trade it for something smaller, but it does mean it can be pretty heavy when full. Something to consider depending on the nature of your compost commute. Also: Because we no longer use a bag of any kind, we typically let the scraps thaw on the counter for a half hour or so to make dumping them into the bin easier.

What to look for: A quick internet search for Vintage Enamel Refrigerator Box with Lid will yield you all sorts of leads. As might be expected, the condition, cost, and size of these boxes are quite variable. (Here’s the box pictured in the collage above.) If you’re buying online, I recommend paying special attention to shipping costs as they can make an otherwise affordable find quite pricey. As always, scouring thrift shops and yard sales will save on shipping costs—environmental and monetary—altogether.

a very DIY sponge holder:

If you are a daily kitchen sponge user, like me, you might be familiar with the temptation that is the suction-cup sponge holder. The idea is simple enough—a small vessel attached to a suction cup that’s supposed to hang out on the inside of the kitchen sink to prevent the sponge from either laying sodden in the bottom of sink, or taking up precious countertop real estate. Surely there are people who have been able to get these things to work. Undoubtedly the reason they’re still on the market is that through some mixture of personal fortitude, coercion, and magic, somebody, somewhere has figured out a way to get the little suckers to suction themselves to the sides of the sinks they’re purportedly designed to cling to. It’s never been me.

Recently, inspired by the Yamazaki Faucet-Hanging Sponge Holder, I took matters into my own hands and with a few twists of wire achieved something I can only describe as a near-perfect solution. I consider it my duty to share.