apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

In my family whoever cooks dinner also has to clean up. That method works great for us because I am a total clean and I go person, but some of the others in my household sometimes seem to operate under the make any mess you can, get every kitchen towel soaking wet (don't ask how, I don't know), and then leave the mess until an hour after dinner method of cooking. Each night I cook, part of my meal planning is figuring out how much time I want to spend cleaning, so I might make grilled cheese and steamed broccoli, or I might make a 5 course feast.

We have the opposite rule. When I cook my boyfriend cleans up and when he cooks I do the clean-up. It keeps the work equally distributed and no one feels like they have to work harder than the other.

It's just me at my house, so I always have to clean up my messes. Sometimes I do leave things a bit longer than I should (usually leaving things out on the counter if I'm running late in the morning), but when I cook, I try to keep the (covered) garbage pail beside me for any vegetable scraps or discarded packaging. It really does help, because all I have to do is lean over to throw something out, not turn around and open a cupboard.
The way I see it, if you have nobody else around to clean up your messes, and you're able to see that a mess needs to be cleaned up, you'll get on it.

Thank you for this. I tend to waste time feeling like I am just unorganized and never will learn to be one of those super-neat cooks. But really, how can cooking be un-messy?

"Life is chaotic and unpredictable. So when we throw a little flour around, or use every pot and pan in the house to make an amazing dinner, we're dancing with chaos instead of fighting it. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be dancing."

I'd rather be dancing too.

I actually just took a picture of my messy kitchen (after making fresh pasta) this weekend. And I agree with you on the "dancing in chaos" analogy, even though I am the type that "clean-as-I-cook".

please check out my messy and "floury" kitchen: http://sweatyguineapig.posterous.com/kitchen-is-a-mess

In the first photo, with the bowl of eggs and the mid-century yellow tile counter top, there are two adorably cute measuring cups that look like tiny batter bowls, one in yellow, the other in red. After quite a bit of searching, I was able to find them from a seller on Amazon. There is a third cup, in green as part of the set. Search for "Melamine Measuring Cup Set of 3" to find them, if you're interested.