I love to cook. This is not news. There are so many things about cooking that I love — things that might seem odd or even boring. I love to chop vegetables. I love to trim large cuts of meat. I love to handle raw chicken. I know, I’m strange.
There is one thing about cooking that I hate. HATE. I hate to clean the kitchen. I hate washing dishes. I hate loading the dishwasher. I hate scrubbing, I hate soaking, I hate drying. This is probably why I classify my kitchen as “a disaster” more often than not.
This is one of the things that really sucks about living alone. There is no one in the house to help clean the kitchen. There is no one that I can guilt into washing all the dishes because I cooked them dinner. It’s all on me. This usually results in me letting dishes hang around way too long before dealing with them. I like to convince myself that everything needs to “soak.” In actuality this is just a convenient excuse for me to fill something with water and ignore it for a couple days.
It wasn’t always like this. After my roommate (who also suffered from an aversion to doing the dishes — we were quite the pair) moved out I rededicated myself to keeping a tidy kitchen. It lasted for a while… a little while. It’s just so hard during the week. My attention span is way too short to plan dinners for a whole week, so I usually end up stopping at the market down the street 3 or 4 times per week. By the time I get home, cook dinner and then eat dinner I have no ambition left. It’s even worse because cleaning the kitchen is the one activity that takes the most ambition.
Someday I’ll figure this whole thing out. Someday I will learn how to keep my kitchen clean without wanting to shove the dirty silverware in my eyes instead of washing them. Someday… I hope.
I know I’m not alone here. What are your tricks to keep the kitchen clean? Is it just as simple as keeping up with the dishes?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Apr 23, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
I used to be that way, but waking up in the morning and going in the kitchen and seeing a huge pile of dirty dishes is seriously depressing, at least for me. If you just force yourself to do it a few times and then (this is the important part:) clean and dry your sink after, you’ll see how addicting it can be. You know, in a good way.
I’m totally with you on this one! And to make it worse, I have a habit, no matter how simple the dish, of using twice the number of dishes and utensils that the recipe actually requires. In addition, I seem to lose energy after the sun goes down so there’s virtually no chance of the dishes getting done the same night. On the plus side, I’m a morning person. I wake up full of gusto and can usually get the dishes done before my kids even wake up. I like doing it that way. It makes me happy.
What’s stressful to me though, is when I have guests over and they insist upon doing the dishes right after the meal. You might think I’d like that, but I do not. I beg them to leave the dishes for me to do the next day – mainly because I literally don’t have the energy to pitch in and help – but I guess they feel it’s their obligation (which it isn’t). I have no problem asking guests to help me when I need help – lighting candles, opening wine, chopping some parsley – but I really don’t expect anyone to do the dishes for me. I’ve never found an appropriate way to handle the situation without coming off as an ungrateful bitch though, and I’ll admit, it is nice to wake up to a clean kitchen.
You are young and I am not. I think time and experience will show you the dishwasher is your friend!!! Try not having one for a while and you will see its value. Because I am old and experienced I can load my dishwasher fast and unload it even faster. It is amazing to me how much I can fit in one load and I even put my wine glasses in the dishwasher. I usually soak pots and pans and that helps ease the pain of scrubbing. I also find using a Dobie pad to make the job very easy. I would suggest keeping a clean kitchen, especially with the warm weather coming. You don’t want to invite the ants!!!!
Heh, you can’t get between my mom and her Dobie pads. They don’t sell them where I live, so she brings her own when she visits.
I, too, am a fan of the “letting it soak” excuse. In an effort to combat the growing pile of dishes, I buy plastic cups. But then I feel guilty about the environment and put them in the sink to be washed and reused. I don’t have a dishwasher so a dish rack is a constant reminder to do something about the situation since I have little/no counter space and the rack takes up about 2 sq. ft. of it. I also am lax about after washing the dishes and putting them into the rack, leaving them to “dry” for days. Then I panic when company comes over because I think it looks like I’m a slob. If you find a way to combat this, let me know. I’m waiting for the magic elves.