Eleanor’s Cure: Kitchen Cleanup

The thing about life as an expat (particularly one who hasn’t decided if she’ll repatriate or not) is that it forces you to live with less. As such, I probably have fewer possessions than you might expect of someone my age. I don’t own a house, or a bike, or even a TV. I buy many books on my (gasp) Kindle, and own approximately four pieces of furniture, all small. The one place I don’t limit my physical collecting is in the kitchen.

Do you need a loaf tin for that cake you’re going to bake? I’ve got three types. What about a frying pan– 12″, 13″ or 14″? I’ve got dutch ovens, a spaetzle maker, a smoothie blender and a vintage slicer specifically for angel food cake that looks like a medieval torture instrument.

My point is, my kitchen is a well-stocked one. And when I say “kitchen”, I don’t just mean the room in my flat; I have boxes of equipment in my bedroom closet that won’t fit into the aforementioned room, as well as in my parents’ basement in Canada. Cooking is a passion; I do it every single day and I’m well-prepared for it.

Which leads me to my kitchen (the room). My lovely, bright, storage-challenged kitchen which I share with my flatmate, who also has quite a bit of the stuff I’ve mentioned up there. This weekend’s task was to clean it up and scrub it down, and with more than a bit of trepidation, that’s just what I did.

In preparation for changing the swing on my fridge door (hopefully will happen next weekend, does anybody want to come by and help?), I decided to focus on cleaning it out, no small task. After removing all food and shelves, I scrubbed all surfaces down with good old fashioned soap and water, before returning a somewhat edited selection to the newly-sparkling fridge.

Once the fridge was done and dusted (literally; I even removed the papers on the outside, scrubbed the doors clean, washed the magnets and arranged them in a fruit-heart on the front… my flatmate must think I’m possessed at this point), I turned my attention to the surface clutter. With a lack of adequate storage in here, a miscellany of random items tends to gather on the long window ledge.

A general tidy was in order; I got rid of a lot of things that just weren’t needed, and found homes for others. I also neatened up the two “drawers of doom” that hold all our pots, pans and tupperware. Sure, some more stuff had to be returned to my “bedroom closet of doom”, but once the flatmate has moved next month, I’ll be able to re-arrange a little. I also plan on buying this bar cart from Ikea, to add some extra storage under the breakfast bar.

How was your kitchen cleanup?

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