Tips for Cooking in a Small Kitchen

How do you know you have discovered something that is fundamental to an activity such as cooking? I believe that fundamentals are those things you know you should do and when don’t do them you end up kicking yourself later because you knew better, and conversely you never regret doing them. Fundamentals are habits that are always, or with very rare exception, good to practice. I don’t claim to be an expert in the kitchen, but I think I have picked up a couple of habits that always make cooking more enjoyable.
When I was learning how to drive a car, i had to learn in a big Suburban. The thing was a monster, but after i learned how to maneuver that beast, then I could drive anything. As a consequence, I can parallel park into spaces that are so small it defies the nature of the universe. Over the last several years, I learned how to cook in a very small kitchen. This has forced me into adapting habits which keep my workspace organized. I am not perfect, but it has helped me tremendously.

Make sure that the dishes are clean before you start cooking. There is nothing worse than trying to maneuver a pot of scalding hot water and pasta into a colander when your sink is full of dirty dishes. If the dish washer has clean dishes in them, put the clean ones away. If there are dirty dishes in the sink, put them in the dish washer.
Make sure your kitchen towels are clean. Use kitchen towels frequently to clean up your work surfaces such as cutting boards.
Make sure you work surfaces are clean. It is pretty gross when you are rolling out some pie dough and you can see crumbs of your grilled cheese you had for lunch.
Make sure your pots, pans, and anything else you need is clean before you start. This holds especially true for things you might use often such as spatulas, pizza cutters, and tongs.
Make sure your garbage has enough room in it.

Finally, clean as you go. When you have downtime as you are cooking, clean up after yourself. Washing the knives, bowls, cutting boards and other hardware allows you to put them away after you are done with them to make room for other things. Also, after you get done eating, you don’t have a huge pile of dishes to wash. This works really really well when you are cooking with a partner. One person can concentrate on the cooking, and the other person can concentrate on cleaning and prep work.

April 19, 2009 Posted in: Cooking Techniques