A Half Full Kind Of Guy

I just spent a small portion of the evening cleaning up after our meal. We had Arwen, Chris and of course Hurricane and Tornado for supper which means that there were lots of dishes and something of a kitchen mess. The bright spot was that Arwen cooked dinner and it was lovely. Isn’t it interesting how food tastes better when you don’t have to prepare it?

Like I said, dinner was nice and we had a fun time visiting before and after dinner. I was accused (unjustly) of causing a sugar high in Hurricane, but it was eventually determined that he was just naturally wired and nothing short of Ritalin could stem the exuberance. We managed to coral the boys long enough to put on coats and boots and they left for home, leaving our place as all natural disasters do, devastated.

Louise and I flopped on the couch and zoned out watching some TV for a while until our energy level returned to normal. It is time to pick up abandoned toys and tackle the kitchen. For me, the first order of cleaning is to get organized. Scrape whatever is left into baggies and bowls and put it into the fridge for a week or two until it turns into some hairy, green, foul smelling thing that gets tossed into the trash bag and taken outside immediately. I guess the other option would be to eat the leftovers tomorrow and the next day. I pick door number one Monty.

Being pretty anal, I usually do a pre rinse of the dishes, cutlery, pots and pans. The dishes go into the dishwasher in an orderly fashion to maximise the amount that the washer will hold. Told you I was anal. Josephine Cochrane is responsible for the invention of the dishwasher that the modern washers are modeled after, in 1887. Let’s hear it for JC! Personally, I don’t trust dishwashers to do a good job on pots, pans and oddly shaped kitchen implements, so they are done lovingly by hand. I kind of get into a Zen like state when I do the dishes, so I don’t mind. Sometimes it is a pain in the ass though, especially if the pans have been sitting, while you flopped on the couch, zoned out and watched some TV.

Louise and I have watched our share of cooking programs over the years and I even have a friend that is taking the Youtube cooking world by storm. You should check out his videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrJingjong . I would like to think that I have picked up a thing or two from these programs, sometimes I will use salt and pepper in the same dish. Baby steps, baby steps.

The one thing that is absent from all of these shows is how the hell do you get the dishes cleaned? Is there some trick? These chefs are full of neat little tricks to make preparing the food, so I have to assume there must be an equal amount of tricks related to the kitchen clean up. I would watch a show on that, wouldn’t you? I know what the trick is. You get the kitchen help or the studio assistants to clean up for you. Maybe there aren’t any magic kitchen cleanup tricks, but I prefer to believe that there are. I also prefer to believe in Santa Clause, that all people are equal, that politicians have our best interests at heart and that the letters in Penthouse forum were real.

Yep! I am a “half full” kind of guy.