How I “Try” To Keep My Kitchen Set Up to Cook
At this point along this journey of mine into a practical Gen X lifestyle space rooted in food, baking, wellness, and a bit of fashion for plus size and big and tall, I have been thinking of the role of my kitchen as I prepare to cook on any given day.
Cooking regularly has less to do with motivation than it does with setup. If your kitchen makes cooking harder, you won’t cook. This is actually a pain point for me. We cook daily, but do not have an “Alice-clean” kitchen. Growing up, it was illegal to cook in a kitchen that was not spotless before every meal. I don’t have a kitchen staff, so sometimes the sink and counters have dishes on them from the previous meal. Sometimes the stove is in desperate need of cleaning, but I have never let that stop me from cooking.
When we first bought our townhouse, the fantasy was to have a showroom kitchen. That dream died quickly. A working kitchen with three cooks at different development stages means some chaos. Over time, we arranged the kitchen so that the things we use most are always within reach. The knife I like stays out. I try my best to keep them sharp, but that’s a conversation for another day. Cutting boards stay on the counter. The grains and beans I cook often are easy to grab. Nothing fancy—just practical.
This is the way my kitchen looked on move-in day. It is safe to say it does not look like this today! Let me just say that it’s clean enough to cook in, but I will not be sharing any current photos from within my kitchen until I get my act together!
In a previous post, I talked about the amount of produce I purchase when I talked about grocery shopping. When it comes to day-to-day cooking, the ingredients sometimes dictate what is cooked versus some preplanned menu. We tried batch cooking, meal planning, extra prep, etc.; none of it stuck, so we just let the ingredients talk to us most days. On other days, we cook a few known crowd favorites that came from just cooking what we have on hand.
I don’t do elaborate prep days. But I do small things that make the week easier. When it’s time to make pizza dough or bread for the week, I do a bit of extra prep, but not much. Cooking extra rice. Washing greens early. Keeping leftovers visible instead of hidden in the back of the fridge. Repurposing one meal for another has earned itself the nickname “Go-Fetch.”
Friction is the enemy. If cooking feels like a project every time, you’ll stop doing it. If it feels like part of the day, you’ll keep going. I get it when it comes to cooking on most days its easy to order takeout, grab a pre-fab meal kit, and call it a day. Cooking from scratch is time-consuming on most days and not a task anyone will look forward to after a long day at work, but the end results of a few tweaks to how the kitchen is set up will go a long way towards creating meals that are as enjoyable to prepare as they are to eat.
What is a non-negotiable for you when it comes to how you set up your kitchen?
