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Clean as you cook

Nancy Leson

Pro chefs have their kitchen grunts to handle the cleanup but we home cooks have to do it ourselves.  And the way to do it is as you go.  I think the clean-up is as much a part of the cooking process as the mixing and chopping, the slaughtering of the ox, all that kind of stuff.

I've rarely tackled a cooking task that didn't allow little spaces here and there in which to do some cleanup.  Rinse and put away utensils, wash dishes, mixing bowls, pans or get them into the dishwasher.  There's always a little extra time to do something.  And that something will be one something less to deal with when the cooking and the eating are done.

I make a game of it.  I like to have as much as possible cleaned and either put away or in the dishwasher by the time I serve the meal.  With the vegetables always at precisely nine O'clock.  Not that I'm compulsive or anything.  I just like order.  A lot of it.

Let's get all Heloise-y here and share some favorite cleanup tips.  I'll go first.  White vinegar.  For everything.  I mix it half and half with water and keep it in a spray bottle.  Great for counters and stainless. You?

"...you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again."

– Joan Rivers

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.