This is the final piece in a three-part series about making it easier to cook homemade meals. If you missed Part 1, you’ll find it here. And for Part 2, click here.
PART 3: THE KITCHEN (LIFE) CHANGE WE MADE
Our kitchen drawers and cupboards used to put up a fight every time we opened them. Plastic containers that had long lost their lids would topple to the floor when we opened the pantry. Pull one spoon from the utensil holder and two more leapt to defend it. Counter space was yielded to knife blocks, knick-knacks, and cupboard overflow.
While our kitchen (and home) always appeared tidy, it was a constant struggle to make it so. To me, a neat home should bring a sense of calm, and time to move on to pursuits other than housework, but this was just never the reality. I’d get everything put back together, and then turn around and start all over. It was exhausting and monotonous, and it definitely stole away time with my family, and time for more meaningful projects.
You start to wonder if you have a personality flaw. In this case, was I just too nit-picky? Or was I just super inefficient? Then, a few years ago, I picked up the now-famous little hardback with the dreamy blue and white cloud cover, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Marie Kondo’s years spent studying people’s homes and habits revealed it wasn’t a personality flaw at fault, it was a flaw in the systems of a house.
After letting her advice wash over me, and truly sink in, it was life-altering. It was a matter of too much stuff. Stuff we didn’t need, or even want. Yet it dominated our living space and my time.
Embracing the book’s ideas sent me down the road to freeing our family of unwanted and unneeded things, and pointed me in the direction of Becoming Minimalist, and, my favorite, The Minimal Mom.
The Minimal Mom’s kitchen advice pulled me in. In her videos, she opens her kitchen up to you, and presents how appealing and functional a kitchen is with only the things you need.
By applying the advice gleaned from these people, we, as a family, discovered that a work space where we can move fluidly is a productive space. This is especially true in the kitchen. When a space makes every movement a fight, you’ll come out on the losing end. If you want to be the kind of person who cooks at home, you need a work space that isn’t struggling against you.
Here’s how we did it
1.) Go through every kitchen cupboard, drawer, and pantry space.
This is the roll your sleeves up part, for sure. The hardest work is deciding what to pitch, donate, or keep. For my initial sweep of the kitchen, I did everything at once, and it took about two days. If that sounds overwhelming, then start with one drawer or one cupboard. Taking a small step may help you evaluate everything without wearing out physically or mentally. Some items will be quick decisions. Others may try to fool you with their attractive, shiny, never-used appearance. Kitchen gadgets like these seem like keepers at first. But ask yourself why you haven’t used this particular item? And ask yourself if you’ll ever actually use it. If the answer is no, then donate it. Forgive yourself for spending money on the gadget in the first place, and let it go. The same goes for gifts that you don’t use. It’s alright to let them go.
This next tip is a bit unusual, but it’s my favorite change in the kitchen. We keep only the number of dishware and utensils we need for the number of people in our house. For us, that means three plates, three cups, three forks, three spoons, and so on. I parted with a fair number of dishes, but I also opted to store some for when we have guests, or our farm open house. While this trick won’t eliminate dish washing and drying from your life, it will stop dishes from piling up. Our experience is that it forces discipline. If we don’t keep up with the dishes after each meal, there won’t be any dishes. (The dishes stored away are in an easy enough spot to reach for a special occasion, but they’re too inconvenient for casual use, so no one ever reaches for those instead of just washing a plate.)
When I clean out a drawer or cupboard or closet, a peculiar and satisfying nuance happens. Storage spaces with breathing room have a different feel when you open and close them. It’s not just that clutter is no longer toppling out. There’s a new energy. They open more easily in your hand, almost springing to help you now. There’s a lightness, an airiness. And when a drawer closes, it tends to make a satisfying, light click. It may sound silly at first, but look at it like this, when everything starts clicking into place, you’re gaining more peace.
2.) A home for everything, including what’s on the counter tops.
For us, this came more naturally after making progress with Step 1. We’ve also refined it over time, as we detect what movements are inconvenient as we cook. When the kitchen is free of all the things you don’t need anymore, intuition about where things should go kicks in. Just make sure you give everything you frequently use an easy-access home.
We emptied out a cupboard with a turntable-style shelf (a.k.a. Lazy Susan), and reserved that for pans only. Before, pots and pans were shoved together in one cupboard, and it was a struggle to free anything. The pans now have their home in the cupboard, and the pots have their’s. I definitely don’t miss clanging, lifting, and jamming pots and pans during every meal prep.
We also only kept the pots and pans we actually use. That almost completely eliminated the need to stack. Cookware now rests in a single layer, all partnered with their lids.
The more I found things in the cupboards and drawers that no longer served us (or never did), the more space I had to put things away, and clear the counter tops. (Ye be warned: From here on out, I dive into some major kitchen minutia. If this is all making sense to you, you’ll likely want to read on. If this all sounds nuts to you, it only gets nuttier from here.) For years, we kept two big utensil holders on the counter. They were constantly splattered in food from the stove, and the seldom-used tools were even dusty. Most of the utensils were duplicates, in sad (even gross) shape, or were never used. We went through them, keeping only our favorites, and then laid them in an empty drawer, within reach of the stove.
It’s been my experience that the kitchen is like an onion. You’ll go through one layer, and feel a sense of increased comfort and peace in the space, and, then, after a time, you’ll discover new ways to make it more efficient. The decluttering habit forms like a muscle. When you use it, and it gets stronger, you’ll start seeing potential improvements all around. This was the case with our compost bowl (as promised, minutia). For years, it sat on the counter, often looking - and smelling - entirely gross. After all the decluttering, there was a deep drawer in our island that was nearly empty. I found a new home for those few items, lined the bottom with a mat, and tucked the compost bowl inside. It’s just as easy to get to, and always hidden - sight and smell.
3.) Fridge and freezer inventory.
For this one, it’s best to just dive in and get it over with, and be ruthless about what you keep. I took everything out of the fridge, wiped it out, and then pitched what we would just never eat, and, of course, what was expired. This step is kind of embarrassing, but it’s eye-opening as far as how much food you waste.
There are three keys to making this step stick:
First, don’t buy groceries on a whim. Buy your groceries with intention, and then actually eat them.
Second, organize the fridge in a way that’s logical to you.
Third, treat the fridge like any other space in the kitchen. Give it a little care daily, or once a week. If something’s gone bad or expired, get rid of it right away. Give the surfaces a quick wipe. An organized, clean fridge that only holds the food you truly eat, lets you assess your ingredients and cook more easily.
4.) Go through non-perishable items.
For some reason, our cupboard contained about four big boxes of raisins. Some were older than our son. We opened that cupboard a dozen times a day, but apparently never looking for raisins. The same was true for plenty of other products. Just like with the fridge, this was a lesson in food waste. On the bright side, ridding yourself of stuff you’re just never going to eat will free up space.
5.) Keep the kitchen a place for food prep.
Our house has an open concept design. The kitchen, dining area, and living room are all basically one space. Like most homes, the kitchen table is used for more than meals. Silas regularly sets up shop with art projects and road systems. But the actual kitchen area is off-limits. No toys on the counters, no mail, no paperwork. Those all have their own home. The kitchen counters are for food prep.
6.) Reset and refine.
The reset is a daily process. But, the wonderful news is that after all this work, a daily reset takes just a few minutes. You never need to block off a big chunk of time to clean the kitchen. Part of this reset process for us is to wash, dry, and put away the dishes right after a meal. Look at it this way, you’re going to have to do it eventually anyway. In a short time, I became so accustomed to the clean look of open counters that I now prefer putting things away.
As for the refining, every few months, I get in the mood to go through kitchen things, and make sure we haven’t collected anything that isn’t serving us, or reevaluate items we’ve held on to, but still don’t use. Refining optimizes your space.
Now, if photo tours of trivial kitchen details are your thing, please, follow me right this way. To everyone else, thanks for reading. If you’re looking to cook more, I hope at least something written above helps. When you reduce the friction in the kitchen, you’ll make it easier to take care of the space, and to take care of you.
Since we’re a three-person household, we keep three of most dishware and utensils. At one point, this cupboard was home to probably about 15 mugs. We kept six of our favorites, and got rid of the rest. As for wine glasses, we keep out two, and store the rest in a less-used cupboard. Reducing our dishware created space in this cupboard for other items, like vases.
We used to own a large collection of disgusting teas that no one wanted. For some reason, we clung to them like they were savings bonds. We also previously stored tea, which we drink all the time, in a cramped, hard-to-get-to space. Now, we keep only the tea we actually drink, and store it in a convenient spot. We also created a home for our glass mixing bowls and measuring cups. We use them them all the time, so it’s handy to have them within easy reach.
All of our cupboards and drawers have breathing room, and you can easily grab items like olive oil or cooking sherry while making a meal. To keep a little excitement in our lives, those canning lids still have a 50 percent chance of raining down on you.
This here’s my pride and joy. I still get misty-eyed when I remember the day I finally eliminated my grimy utensil holders.
This cupboard used to be a mish-mash. Now, it’s for coffee-making items only. (That’s ground coffee in the container with the green lid.)
Here’s the pots drawer. It could still use some refinement, but it’s accessible enough that it doesn’t slow us down during meal prep. For the most part, we store pots with their lids. The same goes for food storage containers. We keep pans in a separate space, and we also have a cupboard specifically for pizza trays and baking dishes.
Full disclosure, this photo was taken the day before a grocery store run, so normally this pantry is more stocked and less open, but this is the general appearance. We eventually decluttered our entire house, so this freed up a hall closet, which we now use as a second pantry. The food storage containers in this photo (plus two more containers pressed into service somewhere) are the only tupperware containers we own. You’d be surprised how few containers you actually need. In case you’re wondering, the glass jar on the first shelf is kombucha. And, as you can see, we have a weakness for seltzer.
This is the kitchen on a typical day. The routine is to wash and put away dishes after every meal, and wipe the surfaces down. It takes a matter of minutes. It’s not a fancy space, but we sure do enjoy it.