A pastry cutter was an often-used part of my mother’s arsenal of baking tools. She used it to combine flour and butter for her spectacular piecrusts.

I have a pastry cutter. I use it about once a year. I know it moved with us from Cambridge to Washington, but when I needed it yesterday to make a Thanksgiving dessert, I couldn’t find it.

I have a smaller kitchen here, and it’s not clear where I put everything as I hurried to get rid of boxes. But I did find my pastry cutter, along with all the other tools I needed for my apple-cheese crisp. And now Thanksgiving dessert #1 is in the freezer.

I suppose I’ll know where “everything kitchen” is when we’ve been here for a year, even if it’s in the closet in the den. Which is where I found my pastry cutter.