I will be the first to admit that teachers make the worst students. We notoriously don't listen to directions, don't pay attention, put things off to the last minute, and skip crucial steps because we think we know best. I always feel horrible when I am sent to a teacher training because, damn, if I am not the most fidgety, off-task, unfocused, talking to my neighbor when I am not supposed to student in the whole world! If I were my own student, I would hate me!
Keep that in mind as I recap my progress so far on the 2010 Kitchen Cure. Even though I got my first assignment over 2 weeks ago, I didn't actually do anything until today. Consequently, I spent about 3 hours this morning working on my kitchen, picking and choosing the steps that I wanted to do and skipping the rest. I am so bad!
Here is my "before" picture of my kitchen with everything open, that I actually did take 2 weeks ago when I was instructed to:
I don't like this kitchen very much and am looking forward to moving, but I have logged a lot of hours in here so I feel some tenderness towards it!
Fridge & freezer before:
Pantry before:
This morning I started by emptying out the fridge and freezer, scrubbing them down, throwing out old and expired stuff, consolidating other things (why did I have 3 open jars of pesto?), and then reorganized.
Freezer after:
Fridge after:
Then I moved on to the pantry cupboard. This is my least favorite part of the kitchen. There are 6 shelves, all very narrow and deep. I can only reach the first 4 without a stool, and I have to sit on the floor to get into the bottom one.
The 6 shelves were organized like this:
- Top shelf: extra baking supplies and spices
- 5th shelf: Baking supplies, nuts, syrups, honey, chocolate, etc
- 4th shelf: Canned vegetables, beans, oils and vinegars, etc
- 3rd shelf: Nut butters, dried fruit, hot cereal
- 2nd shelf: pasta, rice, beans, potatoes, bulk items, etc
- Bottom shelf: tea, hot chocolate, etc
First, I took everything out and got rid of old stuff. Then I decided that the order of the shelves did not making cooking efficient for me. I rarely use the items on the "pasta" shelf but it is one of the easier for me to reach, while I am always dragging out the stool to reach things on my baking shelf or asking B to get something for me. I reorganized the shelves as follows:
Top shelf: extra baking supplies and spices
5th shelf: pasta, rice, beans, potatoes, bulk items, etc
4th shelf: Canned vegetables, beans, oils and vinegars, etc
3rd shelf: Baking supplies, nuts, syrups, honey, chocolate, etc
2nd shelf: Nut butters, dried fruit, hot cereal
Bottom shelf: tea, hot chocolate, etc
So much better!
My assignment for this week is to restock ingredients and tools, but (aside from my empty fridge) I'm pretty well-stocked when it comes to kitchen staples. I sort of skipped the "clean our equipment and tools" part of last week's assignment, so I might focus on that during the week. I haven't been in this kitchen very long (and almost everything is new - hooray for wedding gifts!) so it probably won't take too much time.
Have you been doing the Cure? Do you need to? :)
