Working in the Kitchen

A woman working in the kitchen is not the horrible symbol of oppression that it has become for many.  Working in may be necessary, but you can also find joy and creativity in the work you do there.  The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in our house, and where I do most of the work of keeping my home.  Many of the women I've talked to who do not enjoy keeping their home have some issue with the kitchen.  Their dislike of cooking, dishes, or other tasks, keep them from enjoying their role in their home.  I think that the kitchen is a great place to express our love through the provision of daily needs, use our creativity to create unique and fun food items, and a way to set our minds on accomplishing the goals we have for ourselves.  

Cooking and baking are skills that do not necessarily come easily to everyone, but they are skills everyone can learn.  If you don't know much about flavors and spices, start with just a few basic recipes.  A good cookbook or app will provide you with some basic recipes to get you started.  As you cook, smell and taste the ingredients.  Get to know the flavors of the spices you are using.  As you become familiar with the flavors, you can begin making alterations to those familiar recipes or trying to create new ones!  One of my favorite things about cooking is creating a new dish or an alteration of a recipe that my family loves.  While numerous restaurants make it easy to get through a week without cooking anything, it is not the most cost-effective way to feed a family.  The larger the family, the more economical it is to prepare food at home.  You may not be ready to take on the professional chefs on TV, but you can provide your family with quality food and probably better nutrition than the restaurant down the street.  I think our society has pushed people into thinking if you can’t make an Instagram-worthy cake then you shouldn’t even try.  While I love to bake, and I am trying to hone my skills, I am still not an expert baker.  However, I find such joy in being the one to make birthday cakes for my kids.  They may not look as great as the professionals, but I love being the one who put in the time and effort to make it special for them.  Even if cooking isn't something that you find fun or exciting, you can find a sense of accomplishment in knowing you can care for your family well in providing tasty food for them.  

A huge help in cooking preparation comes with the planning.  I have found that planning out the meals at least a week in advance helps with both cooking and shopping.  Having and knowing what I was planning to cook for a given week helps me to focus my grocery list just on what is needed for food preparation.  It helps me avoid distracting displays in the store that rarely save me money. (This is especially true because I wasn't planning on buying those items in the first place.) I like to look at the ads for several stores and shop in a way that saves the most money, even if it means multiple stores in one trip.  Knowing exactly what I need for the meals I have planned makes this process much more efficient.  Also, having a weekly or monthly plan gives you the freedom of knowing the decision of what to have for dinner has already been made.  You will also be less likely to order a pizza or go out when there is a plan for what to make and the ingredients to make it readily available.  This can also help in keeping goals to make healthier food decisions.  There are times I do not want to eat salad.  I open the fridge and see the salad sitting there bright and colorful and quick to decompose.  Being someone who doesn't like to throw away food, I can't just send all of the salad I buy into the compost bin.  Therefore, even when I don't feel like eating a salad, I still eat it to use it before it goes bad.  In doing so, I am also giving my body better nutrition and more energy with which to accomplish my tasks each day.  Planning can be the key for women who are trying to keep their home while working outside of the home as well.  Knowing the plan for the week will allow you to do some basic meal prep, or even prepare whole meals, on the days that you are not working or in the night before you will eat that meal.  Having something already made, or even just the produce already washed and cut, can save you time and help you get dinner on the table that much faster when you get home from work.  I found that having something already prepared, that I could just pop in the oven when I got home, made me less likely to stop for food on the way home from work.  The slow cooker and pressure cooker have also been amazing tools for food preparation.  These allow me to prepare food the night before and set it to cook while I am gone.  Then we can have a nice hot meal when we get home!  Planning has been immensely helpful to me as I seek to cook most of our meals at home.

With all of the food preparation comes another aspect of keeping a kitchen and home...dishes.  Dishes are the bane of existence for some people, while others, like me, actually enjoy doing dishes.  If given a choice, I would pick washing dishes over just about any other household chore.  It is one of those things that is necessary for a healthy home but isn't always very fun.  For those with a dishwasher, put it to good use.  I would recommend starting it up every evening, even if it isn't quite full, so you start the morning with clean dishes.  For those without a dishwasher, I recommend washing dishes after every meal, or at least at the end of every day.  I find that letting dishes sit over multiple days not only makes them harder to wash, it can also make the task seem that much more daunting.  I usually have better mornings when there isn't a pile of dishes in the sink to greet me. I have also found that keeping dishes clean motivates me to keep up with laundry and other household tasks as well.  This may not be as big of a big motivator for you, but it is still a necessity in your kitchen.

Do you love your kitchen or avoid it at all costs?  Have you considered how a change in the kitchen can change your whole outlook on working at home?  If you are someone who loves your time in the kitchen, teach others also.  The most obvious people to be taught are children, but others can benefit as well.  I have found that once people gain confidence in their cooking they are willing to cook much more often.  If you are someone who does not enjoy your kitchen tasks, seek out a friend who does.  Learn from them, and find out what about it brings them joy.  Grow in your cooking skills and share what you have learned with others, both the food and the knowledge.  Find a sense of accomplishment in knowing that what you do in the kitchen is caring and expressing love to your whole family.