Do the dishes
My wife has started cooking a little more lately, trying out new dishes (but also preparing some of our "stalwarts") and the like. She walked me through her process for one of the new dishes she really likes1, and one of the things she said was that she cleans some dishes in between steps.
Such a simple concept that for some reason doesn't occur to me that often. I think sometimes I do this, but most of the time my thought process tells me that I don't have time between cooking stages to do it. In the past what would happen is our dishes would pile up and become almost unmanageable, something that seems impossible to start.
For a time I tried to stay on top of dishes, washing them after dinner and making sure to load the dishwasher. Unfortunately - as it can happen with many habits - I got lazy, strayed from the process, and that's how dishes pile up. There's an easy solution: just do the dishes! I don't even need to wash between cooking steps, I can just do them first and cook later.
This mindset applies to many things related to cleaning. See a mess? Clean it up, don't walk away and tell yourself you'll do it later. Most of the time it's something that will probably take 5 minutes, but the more you put it off the more time it will take and the more mental preparation you'll need.
Just do the dishes.
Reply by email Share this post Mastodon Bluesky
Sweet Chili Chicken & rice↩