Truly, this is the most relatable sisyphean trial of modernity.
I read this while cleaning the kitchen.
Always keep your kitchen and bathroom clean, boys.
The biggest culprit to a dirty kitchen is someone that has never heard the phrase “if you got time to lean, you got time to clean”. My wife hates this philosophy, but when I’m done cooking and ready to plate, the kitchen is spotless. It must be witchcraft!
The phrase is used to shame people for taking amy breaks at work, which is why people tend to hate it.
Cleaning as you go (if time is available) does result in a lot less work at the end and more about efficiency than laziness. For meals that create a lot of dishes, having someone else clean as you go is even better than puttibg it all on to cook!
I wish my kitchen was just a little bit bigger lol. My fiance gets mad when I’m all up in her space, kitchen is off limits when she’s cooking.
We have had only tiny kitchens and it did take a decade to get the dance down to both be productive in the same space when making some meals. Opening the oven involves an announcement and a confirmation!
There are a few where she needs all the space and I just clean up after. Most of mine have breaks in between steps where I can clean things as I go.
I always refuse all helpers in the kitchen.
Not because of the size, but just fuck no. I don’t want to clean up after some “helper” who managed to slice a single cucumber while getting in the way and leaving a chopping board, knife and excess cuttings all over the place because “I don’t know where you want the dishes” or whatever. It’s no help at all.
My mother in law is especially bad. She doesn’t know where things are, how to cook or how to clean, but always insists on “helping”.
I’m trying to cook here, not babysit a senior who doesn’t accept that her role as provider is over. Go play with the grand kids. That’s why we invited you as a guest.
I absolutely despise the patronizing and bellittling nature of that phrase, and the tone it is usually delivered in…
… But at the same time… cleaning as you cook a complex meal with multiple steps and lots of involved cookware… really really does cut down on overall time spent in the kitchen, and makes for an actually usable and sanitary kitchen.
Worst case scenario, you’ve got everything but the final used cookware soapily soaking in the sink when you serve and eat… and then right after you eat, you rinse and dry those off, and then clean the final stage cookware and serving plates/utensils.
If you don’t have the time or energy to handle cooking and cleaning a complex meal… you don’t have the time and energy to just cook it, and then be overwhelmed later by the accumulation of ‘dish cleaning debt’.
…
It can be somewhat challenging to learn how to cook and clean at the same time, and avoid getting soap into your food or visa versa… but it is by no means impossible, and is a huge time saver… and you can feel proud of yourself for legitimately learning an extremely useful life skill.
If you just set a rule for yourself or your apartment or house that … there should basically never be any dishes left in the sink for over an hour… you avoid the massive pile up of dishes and always being overwhelmed and avoiding them… because your rule basically enforces breaking things down into cleaning smaller amounts of dishes at a time, and it also forces the generally positive experience of cooking and eating to be integrated with the generally negative experience of cleaning dishes.
…
I have, waaaay too many times, lived with people who just pile up dishes somehow in the sink and dishwasher, such that it becomes an actual biohazard (I mean it, rotting food and mold, swarms of flies in a sink that hasn’t been cleaned in two weeks or more, nobody can even remember if the dishes in the dishwasher are all clean, all dirty, or a mix of both)…
…and that means if you wanna cook anything with a commonly used piece of cookware, ok, now you gotta pull it out of the ratsnest in the sink, hope nobody threw any knives in there to cut your hands on, and get an infection from the festering biohazard… and then also you must now somehow clean this cookware while the sink is completely full.
Which means you have to just clean the entire sink to begin to be able to clean the major cookware you need to begin to cook the food.
…
Hell, the solution that ended up working best for me was to just also throw on a ‘no dishwasher’ rule.
Force yourself to associate the actual cleaning cost with whatever you are cooking… and the result was that I ended up with a mental health affirming regular structured rule/habit, that I actually ended up genuienly enjoying, as another source of ‘i actually accomplished something today’… as well as basically ingraining a better subconscious ability to understand what level of cooking complexity I actually had the energy to prepare.
If you find yourself being often overwhelmed by what you want to make… learn to make simpler recipes, get a rice cooker or crockpot and just have basically a constant supply of something approximating a stew, get an airfryer or toaster oven for rapidly heating up smaller portions, salads are great for you and often have a pretty low prep time.
Save the dishwasher for actual schedule emergencies and hosting an occasional get together or party.
…
Basically, treat dishes as credit card debt.
Pay that shit off ASAP, otherwise, it’ll snowball into disaster.
Remove the ‘i can handle the dishes/pay this off later’ from your mental approach to it, directly associate all the costs together in a very near time frame.
…
tldr; that saying needs a makeover or rebrand.
Maybe:
Clean as you go, dish pile don’t grow.
something like that? I am not really a … sloganeer.
Okay… but while you were typing all of this, you could have been cleaning. The motto stands.
Got nothing to clean.
Because … I follow these rules… and keep everything clean.
My wife hates this philosophy, but when I’m done cooking and ready to plate, the kitchen is spotless.
You know, I’m firmly of the philosophy that a big part of being a good chef is sweeping up behind yourself as you go. Minimizing the volume of cookware and number of appliances I use is also important.
But come on, dude. You’re not wiping splattered oil off a hot stove unless you’re a masochist. That cast-iron isn’t getting touched until it’s had time to cool down.
You have to prioritize. The cast iron pans are one of the only things that can wait because you never really have to clean them spotless anyways.
That being said, I can always use an oven mitt and my cast irons are so long seasoned that I could leave them overnight in the sink w/o a problem other than a little surface rusting on the bottom.
It’s made even worse when you don’t have a dishwasher.
Yeah, in my student single flat, I didn’t had a dishwasher for quite some time.
Couldn’t keep up in any way, although this shit kitchen wasn’t even up to really cook something big, but hand washing every little thing, really put me off cooking for quite some time.
I think, I re-used the same set of plate and knife for years, just because I didn’t want to use up more dishes, that I need to wash…
I have had a dishwasher for basically all my life ( Over 50. Get off my lawn), an I recently moved to a small apartment that has no “magic cabinet”, (the one where you put dirty dishes and when you take one out it’s clean), after my kids moved out. At first the dishes piled up, but now I use what is in tbe drying rack. Gamechanger.
There are small dishwashers that you can place anywhere, bought one for my small kitchen. Lifesaver.
Getting a dishwasher was one of the things that has improved my quality of life the most. Even a crappy, cheapo dishwasher like mine will make a big difference.
This so much. Don’t have a dishwasher currently and I spend upwards of 20 minutes a day in front of the sink. Makes my shoulders hurt hunching over like that all the time
Only 20 minutes?!?! I do have a dishwasher, and I still spend well over 20 minutes hunched in front of the sink cleaning dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher every day.
I let my dishwasher decide which dishes can be washed in there. They either survive or they end up in the trash.
No one in hell would I pay premium prices for something that is going to waste my time by requiring pampering.
Same with clothes.
It’s all just stuff and I refuse to allow it to control me.
I can’t wash dishes even if wanted to, too tall so the sink is way too low down. Instant back pain.
Buuuut I’d rather not renovate the kitchen just for that. Dishwasher crutch! Haha.
I got a countertop dishwasher last year, best 300 ive ever spent. looking forward to having a real dishwasher when I eventually move!
When you start to level up in life, invest in a mid-tier or above dishwasher. Man that thing has changed my life. We had a dishwasher but it started leaking and caused water damage on the floor. That was a whole headache. Went to buy a new one once the floor was fixed, turns out I had a very basic, entry level dishwasher. It wasn’t terrible (until it leaked) but upgrading to a better one, oooh baby, this thing cleans and dries like a dream! Ah such a midlife thrill acquiring an effective dishwasher.
Our struggle is lack of space for a full-size one. We might eventually get an 18” one, but we don’t have a lot of options for where to put it. What was the upgraded model you went with? Those crappy basic “contractor’s special” white ones can be more trouble than they’re worth.
Just swapped mine for a Kitchenaid model that is a massive improvement over my bargain bin. I imagine most of the >700 ones are good as long as you avoid Samsung and anyone else advertising gimmicks like wifi instead of good washing and drying.
Note that you can’t always compare them across retailers since they’ll sell slightly tweaked models to each, but usually they have a common numbering system. I think both Bosch and Kitchenaid essentially tier theirs by 100. My Kitchenaid is a 604 and I could’ve gone down to a 500-series but liked that this one is where it included a larger external vent and fan to push air.
We went Bosch, I think some 800 series or something. It’s nice, it’s got that hidden top rack for the weird shaped utensils and whatnot. Also nerded out and watched instructional videos and they were saying it’s best to just scrape food off and load. Don’t pre-rinse, you’re basically doing the job twice if you pre-wash. We had a Whirlpool before which the appliance sales guy said any Whirlpool is like entry-level. Once you go up a level they brand them as KitchenAid cause I guess those two companies merged.
