My husband is a perfect helper in a kitchen. We love to cook together. I believe this is because of how I organize my kitchen. But this is not the case in every family. This is why I thought I will write the post with tips on how to organize your kitchen.
At the end of a long day, the lady is preparing dinner in a hurry. Meanwhile, the man of her life is deep diving on his telephone or computer. Familiar? This is how millions of couples are losing a chance to spend at least half an hour together. Why not make it together? Why not use this time to cook together and talk about all the crazy things that happened during the day? In reality, very often men do not want to know what is happening in our kitchen, they cannot find anything and feel like aliens there. This is why they don’t even want to give it a try.
It is so easy to make kitchen well-organized if we stick to some basic principles and routines. If you follow just a few simple tips, you can transform your kitchen in a way that men wouldn’t feel there like in a jungle and wouldn’t reject it as “user-unfriendly App.” So, let’s start with tips on how to organize your kitchen.
Kitchen Organization Tip No.1: the apron
If you are an expert in cooking, you can cook in a silk dress and go to the porcelain and crystal covered table straight after you finished your cooking. But less advanced skills equal more stains on your clothes. An apron is a must in every kitchen. And if you want to invite your man to the kitchen, first of all, you need to offer him an apron, otherwise, he will smudge himself and will never put his nose back there.
The apron should be funny and manly and cover as much as possible, reducing the risk of stains on clothes. Do not expect a man to find an apron in the drawer and after using it put it folded back. In my house back in Lithuania aprons rest in a drawer and every time my husband comes to help me in the kitchen I hear “where is my apron? I cannot find it again. You hid it somewhere”. As a result, he never puts it back to the drawer, more likely leaving it somewhere on the corner of the cabinet. I don’t make this mistake in my other houses. All aprons should be hanging in a visible and reachable place to make it easy to spot it, take it and hang again after usage.
Kitchen Organization Tip No.2: keep everything together and accessible
Are you familiar with complaints like “why do you hide everything in closets and cabinets”?It is scientifically proven that men have “tunnel vision”. They are able to clearly see everything in front of them (to chase their dinner so to speak), but not so much around. At the same time, women can see at least 45 degrees to the left, to the right, up and down. This biological difference makes finding things in the kitchen much harder. And if you add the complexity of using x-ray vision to see hidden things inside the cabinets and drawers?
He comes to the kitchen full of enthusiasm to help, and it starts: “Where is the cutting board? Where did you hide the cheese knife? In which drawer we keep spatula?” Lady stops everything she was doing and takes the role of a junior kitchen assistant in every move he makes. The other option – he never comes to help, as he does not want to spend another hour trying to find things.
You should place daily used tools, gadgets and essential appliances in easily accessible places. Use these
- Keep things you use most often at eye level.
- Store things where you use them.
- Group like items together.
These kitchen organization rules will help save time and make meal preparation easier and more enjoyable.
Kitchen Organization Tip No.3: labels
Never make your kitchen a hiding place, where everything hides in cabinets, drawers, and jars. Kitchen organization should include labeling things as well. Typical situation: a guy searching for flour opens five cabinets and finds some food canisters that look like the ones that have flour in them. Not yet. To see the one he was searching for he needs to open ten containers. And then, how to recognize the flour from starch? Such a waste of time and nerves.
How can a poor guy know where you can find flour, and where beans? Clear glass or plastic containers, canisters or jars are one option, but these are not suitable for keeping condiments and other dry goods, as these should be kept without light. Even if your containers are transparent, it is not easy to guess is it starch or icing sugar, black or fragrant pepper.
Therefore you should label jars, cutting boards, shelves, baskets – as many things in your kitchen as you can to prevent everyone who wants to cook in your kitchen from endless “have you seen…” questions and fuss.
And all the wires of appliances. It is never enough electrical sockets in the kitchen. But it is so easy to stick a label to all of them and never get lost again.
The Last Tip
Just smile and ignore mistakes. The worst that can happen with men in the kitchen is a bit of creative mess around the cutting boards and the sink. Sometimes even the best kitchen organization system cannot help with this. But what is that mess in comparison with the pleasure to cook and discover new things together?
