This is my kitchen as it looked tonight after I cooked dinner.(Ravioli with homemade pesto sauce)
I have been cooking since I was 11 and I was taught to clean as I went because someone was going to have to clean up after you and the idea was you should make it easier on them.
I was raised with quite a lot of kids and there were always tons of dishes to wash without adding a total kitchen disaster to the job.
My boyfriend was also raised with quite a lot of kids,too,on a kibbutz. Unfortunately, they had another system. One did their job. If your job entailed cooking the meal and someone else’s to tidy up after the meal, you didn’t worry too much about how you left the kitchen. If you made a huge mess in the cafeteria kitchen(the majority of kibbutz’s ate communal style, hence the cafeteria)there were about 10 folks assigned to kitchen duty and they could handle the mess.Also the industrial dish washing set up didn’t hurt.
Anyway, he did work as a cook in the kitchen but was never taught my Quakerish ideals.Now when he cooks the kitchen is destroyed and that’s just after a meal for him and me!
And even when he cooks his dreaded Sunday shakshuka(I don’t know how to spell it) breakfast,for himself because I won’t touch it, the destruction is total.
He’s gotten a bit better, he’ll wash the frying pan. But he will not wash the cutting board or knives or other pots and pans let alone his own plates and silverware.Or mine.
I’ve come to hate living like a dirty bum. I guess it’s age but a dirty kitchen and bathroom gross me out and depress me. No one else I live with has once cleaned the toilet. We’ve lived in this space for about 2 years. Can you believe that? Am I a doormat or what? I can’t let things get so bad that it has to be cleaned.But that is what has to happen in order for my roommates to clean. It’s a problem when there are differing “filth thresholds”.