Okay, so nobody really likes to clean but the deal at my house is that if one of us does the cooking, the other does the cleaning.
I suppose in a household full of nerds, we should have defined "cooking" and "cleaning" before making this deal. Foolishly, I believed that cooking actually meant busting out the pots and pans, involved some slicing and dicing, maybe some simmering, baking or poaching, and most definitely meant managing a balance of flavour, temperature and timing. Cleaning meant taking those newly crusted pots and pans, soaking, scrubbing and rinsing them, and wiping down the counters and other cooking surfaces, as well as putting away anything that was used during prep and cook time.
Taking a pre-prepared meal out of a cardboard box and inserting it into the oven is not cooking. Dropping plates and utensils into the dishwasher, squeezing liquid detergent into the moulded pocket and turning the dial is not cleaning.
But knowing there's a sliding scale means I can claim the same cooking and cleaning activity on those days when I'm just too tired, or annoyed for that matter, to exert real effort. I, too, can heat a pizza stone, drop a pie on it and cut our dinner into 8 equally-sized thin crust wedges 15 to 19 minutes later.
And the bonus? No dish pan hands on those days.
I suppose in a household full of nerds, we should have defined "cooking" and "cleaning" before making this deal. Foolishly, I believed that cooking actually meant busting out the pots and pans, involved some slicing and dicing, maybe some simmering, baking or poaching, and most definitely meant managing a balance of flavour, temperature and timing. Cleaning meant taking those newly crusted pots and pans, soaking, scrubbing and rinsing them, and wiping down the counters and other cooking surfaces, as well as putting away anything that was used during prep and cook time.
Taking a pre-prepared meal out of a cardboard box and inserting it into the oven is not cooking. Dropping plates and utensils into the dishwasher, squeezing liquid detergent into the moulded pocket and turning the dial is not cleaning.
But knowing there's a sliding scale means I can claim the same cooking and cleaning activity on those days when I'm just too tired, or annoyed for that matter, to exert real effort. I, too, can heat a pizza stone, drop a pie on it and cut our dinner into 8 equally-sized thin crust wedges 15 to 19 minutes later.
And the bonus? No dish pan hands on those days.
