Does Your Kitchen Need a Cure?
 

This last week, I received my usual weekly e-newsletter from thekitchn. In the email, Sara Kate announced this fall's Kitchen Cure. I am taking part, and looking forward to getting my kitchen clean and organized before the holidays hit.

This week's assignment is to:

1. Take before photos of your kitchen.
2. De-clutter and purge old food.
3. Wipe down the cupboards, fridge, and remaining containers.

from: Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | Kitchen Cure Week #1: Clean Out the Fridge and Pantry The Fall 2009 Kitchen Cure

I've already gotten started, jumping ahead to number 2 while waiting for my camera battery to charge. I figured there are probably some other folks on here interested in taking part.

So, how about you? Could your kitchen use a little cure?

I do this every so often, but our current kitchen is SO small, there is no way to keep it nice. We call it a one-butt kitchen. If there is more than one butt in the kitchen, it's too many. The pantry is comically too small, we had to buy a free standing one and leave it in the dining room. It requires daily maintainence, and with our busy schedules and 2 kids, we just seem to let it go for a few days and it's all messed up again.

Every flips out when I do this. Last time I purged the pantry and fridges, everyone (friends and family that crash here daily) was suddenly very concerned about how I didn't have any 4-year-old green olives or Spam (I never eat Spam) from the early Cretaceous.

I can't stand clutter and I like unnecessary food even less. This is a cure I can certainly get behind.

While the same cannot be said for other areas in my house, the kitchen is usually pretty neat and organized. Compare that to my bed which doesn't get made until I replace the sheets every week, and I have several piles of clothes laying around the bedroom. One of my faults is that I clean up as I cook...stir, mix, into pot, while it's heating/cooking I clean the last things I used. When I'm done cooking it's usually all cleaned up. Also, fortunately, when the kitchen was renovated almost 2 years ago it ended up with at least 3 times as much cabinet space as before, and more counter space since I had the wall to the dining room partly opened and have a granite counter/eating area there with three nice stools. I just went to the markets earlier today so any old or semi-old stuff in the fridge is gone.