This Kitchen Cabinet Organizer Is the Best $20 I’ve Ever Spent

This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now.

Living in a small apartment means I’m used to making concessions—like needing to heft my stand mixer from atop the fridge for every batch of cookies. Or having to play “stuff my collection of baking sheets and cutting boards into the clown car and hope it stays shut” whenever I’m putting dishes away. The cabinet next to my stove often wins this game. (The losers? My downstairs neighbors, who certainly hear everything tumbling out.)

I know life doesn’t have to be like this. In fits of revenge bedtime procrastination, I ogle organizers. I dream about big, colorful pegboards and a pot rack that slides smoothly out of the cabinet, but I’ve written all those off as too much of an investment for a home I’m only renting. But when a recent night of online window shopping brought me to youCopia’s StoreMore Adjustable Bakeware Rack, I bit the bullet. A $20 ticket to peace, with no tools, screws, or stud finders needed—could it be possible?

When the package arrived, I took an early lunch break, eager to put it together. What drew me to youCopia’s kitchen cabinet organizer over its slightly cheaper competitors were the adjustable wire dividers, which fit easily into a sturdy plastic base. It took a few seconds longer to set up than the racks with preset dividers since I had to eyeball the right distances for the big sheet pans and the half sheets and all the other stuff. But ultimately the ability to customize meant a better fit in my cabinet, which has a big pipe going through it (boooo), and flexibility if my equipment collection ever expands or changes.

After a minute or so of tinkering, I placed the rack in the cabinet, with the big things on one side and smaller items like a cutting board fit for a single apple on the other. Between them, I ended up with the perfect space for the immersion blender and its attachments, for which I had long struggled to find a home. Order, it turns out, comes pretty quickly once there’s a system for everything. I stepped back and marveled. Suddenly, I looked like a person with my act together.

In the weeks since I’ve found myself considering more sheet-pan meals; I use cutting boards other than the one that lives on the counter; and I no longer cast a stink eye at my wire cooling racks and their tiny projecting feet. Finally, I’ve found peace—at least in this little, stressful part of my life—and all it took was a few minutes and a $20 kitchen cabinet organizer.