Under-utilizing my kitchen, on purpose.

Hasn't it been a long time since I wrote a Homemaking for Engineers post?  Since late summer, I think.  

Once a new baby arrives in the house, it takes quite a while for me to feel I've got the time to methodically tweak my systems.  No, for the first nine months or so my system-tweaking is strictly frantic and ad-hoc.

But I must be feeling in control of myself again, because I started thinking about the work triangle in my kitchen. 

A side comment first.  Who on earth started the idea that the "three main work sites" in the kitchen — the vertices of the "work triangle" — are the sink, stove, and refrigerator?  Sink — check.  That's where you are working when you wash dishes, run water, deal with raw meat, or clean vegetables.  Stove — check.  That's where you are working when you sauté in a skillet or stir a boiling pot.  But unless you're putting away groceries, which isn't "cooking," who "works" at the refrigerator?  The third vertex of the work triangle needs to be a prep station, not the spot that the fridge door swings through.  But I digress.

This is my kitchen, designed by Mark and me:

You can tell that we read about "the work triangle" before we committed it to blueprints.  It's kind of a classic peninsula shape.  You see where the stove, sink, and refrigerator are.   And you see that there are several expanses of counter for prep work.   There's plenty of room to spread out.

This is nice when I am cooking with another person.  Which happens at least a couple of times a week.  It's a great kitchen for two cooks to maneuver around each other — one chopping vegetables on the peninsula, another standing at the stove stirring.   You can have three people working at the peninsula alone.   It really works quite naturally and hardly ever feels cramped (until children start parading to the refrigerator in search of cold drinks — a major design trade-off.)

I'm very grateful to have such a nice, spacious kitchen.  I used to cook in a much smaller one.  Before that I cooked in an even smaller one.  Before that I cooked in a truly tiny one, with about four square feet of counter space.

And yet it seems that my cooking mess expands to fill the space I have.  When I am done cooking dinner, I have generally strewn messes all over the entire kitchen.  

Here is a picture from about a year ago (heaven knows why this picture was taken):

You can't see it, but I'm sure the mess extends to the left all the way across the peninsula and to the right all the way past the dishwasher.  Since our dining table is in the same open area, this (or something similar) is the sight we are treated to while we have our dinner.  Every night.

Anyway, I got to thinking… how much space do I actually need to cook in, when it's just me that's cooking?  What if I tried to do as much work as possible in a very small part of my counter, and left the rest of it clear?  How would that work?

I decided to try it, on several nights over the last couple of weeks.

I started by clearing and wiping down the entire peninsula top and the countertop over the dishwasher, to the right of the sink.  Why those places?  Purely on aesthetic grounds (though you'll see it was a happy choice for practical reasons too).   These two surfaces are the most visible ones in the kitchen, especially in the view from the dining table or when entering the kitchen area from the front door.  I wanted my kitchen to look nice even to a guest who walks in on me when I am in the middle of dinner.

I chose to work chiefly in the back corner, by the coffee maker:

Here is what the back corner looked like tonight while I was in the middle of assembling an egg bake:

Normally I take up the whole peninsula for this.  It still looks quite crowded and messy.  But if you take a step back you can barely tell I'm using the kitchen:

(You can tell that the baby's been using the kitchen, though.)  

So what's it like working in such a small space?  Well, I could definitely streamline it a bit if I had fewer items taking up space on the counter.  The bread boxes and cutting board sometimes live on top of the fridge, for instance.  And I could have put that little green teapot in the dishwasher before I started cooking.  I probably could get the coffee maker into a cabinet if I worked at it.

But even with those things in the way, it is not as cramped as you might think.  After having cooked in this spot over a few different nights, I notice that I do more clean-as-I-go.  I have to.  And that I am remembering the chef's art of mise-en-place:  getting all the ingredients lined up and ready before diving into assembly.  By restricting myself to this tiny corner of my kitchen — much as I was restricted  to a tiny kitchen in my college days — I'm forcing myself to adopt habits that are adapted to a smaller space.  And just as I did back then, I'm finding that I can work in a smaller space, quite well.

One advantage became clear right away:  The less I move around the kitchen, the less stuff I drop on the floor.  And the less risk I'll spill something hot or raw on an underfoot child.  The spot I picked to prep in,  though small, turned out to be pretty convenient for that use.  It's right between the sink and the stove; it has lots of electrical outlets; and it's within reach of knives, spices, and several drawers and cabinets of useful prep items.

After I finished assembling my egg bake and popped it in the oven, I started on a carrot salad.   I had to put the mixing bowl and other items into the dishwasher before there was enough room on the countertop in that corner to set up the food processor and a sheet of waxed paper to catch the carrot peelings.  But while all that was going on, my peninsula still looked beautiful from where I was standing:

(See the little dry-erase board?  I'll post about that another time.  It's another idea I'm testing.)

Eventually, I had finished the carrot salad and started on the last two dishes, a pot of brussels sprouts (frozen from the grocery store) and a bowl of corn (frozen for us by my wonderful mother-in-law).  That wasn't a big deal, of course — just had to open the bags.  The carrots went onto the peninsula and were out of my way.  The egg bake was almost done.  Remind me to give you the recipe.  Everyone loves it.

Sprouts are on the stove.  Corn is in the microwave.

My dear husband set the table, we moved all the dishes over there, and sat down and had a relatively peaceful dinner.  Here is the view from my husband's chair (minus me):

There's still mess in the corner, but you can barely see it!

The dishwasher was still running when we cleared the table, so all the dishes you see in the foreground of the previous photo (and more you don't see) went to the sink and the counter.  Quite a lot of dishes.

And yet, if you happen to be seated at the table enjoying your wine, the kitchen still has an air of overall peace:

I mean, compared to how it usually looks.  Maybe you'll have to take my word for it.

(The rattan tote bag hanging from the wall is where we keep cloth napkins.  The other shapeless stuff on the wall is baby bibs hanging from a hook.  I am on the lookout for nicer-looking, but inexpensive, tote bags.)

Now, some important notes.

It seems as if I'm under-using the kitchen this way.  Why have all that beautiful counter space if I'm not going to use it most nights?  But actually, the "clear" parts of the counter are  being used.

– The bar stools next to the peninsula make a great place to sit and talk to the cook, if the bar part is kept clear and welcoming.  Why do you think the bottle of wine wound up there during dinner?  Because my husband came home, opened it, and sat down there to chat with me over a glass of bubbly while I made dinner.  When we have friends over, the adults usually wind up sitting or standing around the peninsula while children eat at the table.  It's so much nicer to use that area when it's not covered with food-prep mess.

– The peninsula surface is a great spot to collect each serving dish as I finish it.  Notice that's where the bowl of carrot salad turned up?  If I want to serve from the kitchen instead of pass dishes at the table, it makes a fine sideboard.  But it's so much more convenient (and food-safety-conscious) to place the serving dishes on a clean surface instead of one that's been used for prep.

– The bit of counter above the dishwasher — to the right of the sink — is an obvious parking spot for dirty dishes being cleared from the table.  They'll be scraped into the trash can under the sink and maybe rinsed in the sink before being put into the dishwasher; right by the sink is where they should go, so that when the clearing is all done one person can stand in front of the sink, with the dishwasher open, and process those dishes from countertop to trash can to sink to dishwasher, all without having to take a step or move a drippy dish over any expanse of floor.  But for a person to stand at that work space, the dishes first have to be collected on that countertop, and to make room for the dishes, that countertop has to be clear.

Now, of course, there are going to be times when I will want to prepare food on those other expanses of counter.  I will want to use the peninsula if there are two or more cooks in the kitchen.  I might want to do prep on the peninsula if there is a friend seated at the bar stools, so I don't have to turn my back on my guests.  The peninsula, being bigger, is best for rolling out dough or topping pizzas.  And raw meat should be dealt with on a separate counter, without a lot of extra stuff on it, to avoid cross-contamination.

But by restricting my work, and my mess, to a smaller spot in the kitchen, I've opened up plenty of space for other uses, and a little more beauty.