11 great holiday kitchens

Yorba Linda, Calif.

Size: 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3,608 square feet

Price: $1.02 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Bright Southern California light

Yorba Linda is an affluent suburb 40 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. This home in a master-planned golf-course community is a bright place to bide time and cook — or watch the cook.

Granite slab countertops and a full granite backsplash are handsome and make for easy cleanup. The huge center island has a breakfast bar at which you'd actually want to hang out and have breakfast — or where the kids can cut holiday sugar cookies. If the holidays dawn balmy — this is California, after all — move the preparations to the home's outdoor kitchen, which also has a serving island, a fire pit and outdoor speakers.

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Rio Rancho, N.M.

Size: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,280 square feet

Price: $475,000

Coolest part of the kitchen: Award-winning style

Just north of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho has nearly 90,000 people and is one of the state's fastest-growing cities. This 3,280-square-foot home on a golf course won "Best Kitchen" honors in the area's Parade of Homes in 2005, the year it was built.

What makes it so great? Take a look at the rounded wooden hood over the range, those side spice drawers and the nifty way that some overhead cabinets open upward, instead of to the side. The center island has a one-of-a-kind green marble slab, and the other counters are stainless steel. Outside stands a built-in Viking grill, just waiting for you to butterfly your turkey and grill it on a crisp winter's day while soaking up the views of New Mexico's high desert.

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Helotes, Texas

Size: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,326 square feet

Price: $569,849

Coolest part of the kitchen: An island where no one would be lonesome

Helotes is a town of about 10,000 people near San Antonio. This new home's kitchen isn't so wild and crazy — it just seems a great place to gather.

Sure, it has the usual nice touches: the Viking appliances, dark maple cabinets with ebony glaze and Omega Stone counters. But check out how the island hangs well over its base and doubles as an eating area, so relatives and friends can hang out comfortably over eggnog while you prep the holiday ham.

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Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Size: 6 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, 13,523 square feet

Price: $5.995 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Celebrity seller

Is NBA star Jason Kidd a "Top Chef"? His former kitchen sure makes it seem so.

Kidd played for the Phoenix Suns basketball team for several years. Now that he's with the New York Knicks, his Spanish Colonial mansion in suburban Paradise Valley is for sale.

Built in 2008, the home has a pool, tennis court and a theater that seats 18. But it's the kitchen that interests us. It has a French country look, with beamed ceilings and double everything: ovens, pantries and gas ranges.

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Missoula, Mont.

Size: 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 5,912 square feet

Price: $1 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Stirring view

This home combines the best of city and country. It's near the Highlands Golf Club and not far from the University of Montana, but the home sits on more than 12 acres, with end-of-the-road privacy.

Good luck visiting this house's home gym this holiday season when you have the French country kitchen to hang out in. It has Viking appliances, custom granite and tile, and a walk-in pantry. There's also an expansive deck and patio, so you can take a breather from basting the bird and soak up big views of the city below.

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New York City

Size: 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3,500 square feet

Price: $10.5 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Large for its location

People don't use their kitchens in Manhattan, do they? Too small and useless.

Well, they might if the kitchens looked like the one in this penthouse loft, located atop a converted 19th-century warehouse in SoHo. This place has all of the unreal stuff for a hip New York penthouse, including a wood-burning fireplace and a private roof terrace with views of the surrounding landmark district.

The kitchen is primed for high-falutin' Gotham dinner parties, with a center island open to the entertaining space, deep Caesarstone quartz countertops and custom cabinetry. Appliances include a professional Viking range, double Liebherr refrigerators and dueling Miele dishwashers for all those wine glasses. Meanwhile, a wall of floor-to-ceiling, reclaimed barn wood cleverly conceals the pantries.

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Brian Head, Utah

Size: 5 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 10,096 square feet

Price: $2.38 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Hibachi grill

There's a lot to recommend in this home. It's in the mountains of southwestern Utah, just minutes from Brian Head Ski Resort. It has an elevator, and the great room has a 30-foot fireplace with its own waterfall.

When it comes to mealtime, however, the kitchen is no slouch: It has three preparation areas, with two islands — one a U-shaped bar with built-in, hibachi-type grill, for Asian-themed holiday cooking. It also has a commercial-level barbecue station with a vented hood and a food-preparation island with a bar. Multiple sinks let you work from anywhere, even washing holiday yams while watching the sun go down on 11,300-foot Brian Head Peak.

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Brecksville, Ohio

Size: 4 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, 9,993 square feet

Price: $2.65 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: A deep fryer

Brecksville is a town of about 14,000 people just south of Cleveland, and home to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It's also home to this luxurious house on 13 wooded acres. This swanky pad has all sorts of fun stuff, from a putting green outside to a lighted aquarium inside.

But the main kitchen — there's also a second one downstairs — is a chef's delight. It overlooks the wooded backyard and features custom burl-maple cabinetry, granite countertops, a large dinette area, a Gaggenau gas cooktop and wall ovens, a Subzero refrigerator and an Asko dishwasher.

Our personal favorite touch: the deep fryer. Why have fruitcake for dessert when you can deep-fry a Snickers?

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Apple Valley, Utah

Size:6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4,800 square feet

Price: 489,900

Coolest part of the kitchen: Rustic-chic ambience

This home in the red-rock country of southwestern Utah is just 10 miles from Zion National Park, and its 20 acres back up to thousands of acres of public land.

"This home was built with love by a woodworker, and his craftsmanship is perfectly displayed in the kitchen," says listing agent Micah Christensen of Sonoma Creek Realty. Check out the hand-hewn log rafters, natural pine cabinets and cherry-wood floors.

Red cliffs stand outside the kitchen windows, so you won't feel like you're holed up while mashing all those holiday potatoes over the Viking range.

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Chesterland, Ohio

Size:5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, 8,500 square feet

Price: $2 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: A dumbwaiter

Chesterland is a small town about 30 miles east of Cleveland. Touches in this new, custom-built home include 9-foot, solid maple doors. But we were drawn to its 26-by-19-foot kitchen, which has a maple coffered ceiling, a green onyx tile backsplash, granite countertops, Miele and Bosch stainless-steel appliances and a large walk-in pantry with an old-school dumbwaiter that goes to the second floor. It's big enough to send laundry up and down — or even a New Year's Day breakfast in bed.

Don't want to be indoors? Cook the goose in the home's covered outdoor kitchen, which also has granite countertops, a stamped concrete floor, and a Fisher & Paykel rotisserie gas grill and warming drawer.

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Darien, Conn.

Size: 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 8,825 square feet

Price: $3.95 million

Coolest part of the kitchen: Steam oven

This brick Georgian Colonial sits on a private cul-de-sac with views of the Country Club of Darien. The state-of-the-art kitchen, which has lots of light, has countertops of unusual Macauba marble.

This kitchen of this 1994 home, renovated in 2008, has appliances that befit a swanky mansion, including a Wolf oven, Miele warming oven and La Cornue cooktop. We particularly like the Gaggenau steam oven, which is plumbed to the water supply and steams that holiday food to help it retain all the moisture and nutrients.

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