Doing the Kitchen Cure!

IMG_7374, originally uploaded by All About Eve.

I love the Apartment Therapy blog, and the book Apartment Therapy was instrumental in helping us declutter and simplify our life, as well as helping us focus on creating a home that is refuge and sanctuary. I'd go so far as to say it was life-changing.

Now The Kitchn, AT's site about cooking at home, has kicked off its Kitchen Cure! The goals of the cure? The first two weeks are about getting your kitchen in shape: throwing out anything unused, organizing cabinets, drawers, and countertops. Next up is building the pantry, basic skills, and techniques for building a menu. The graduation: Friends over for dinner. (I hate the term "dinner party").

While I never did the formal 8-week apartment cure, I did follow many of the steps and loved it: by stretching the process over a couple of months, and breaking big steps into manageable actions, the process really becomes less intimidating. And the pictures on the Flickr group were inspiring: unlike decor magazines, AT is about real people in real apartments.

This week's assignments:

• Check out The Kitchn Cure Flickr Page and upload your "before" photos. Open those cupboards and refrigerator doors and dare to show us the state of things. If you want to highlight your pics, put your link in with your comments. This will allow us all to talk about one and learn from one another's project.
  
• Go through your refrigerator, cupboards, counter-tops and pantry and clean up your food clutter. The foods we have in our kitchens should be fresh and replenished frequently. Take a long hard look at that tin of wasabi powder you got on your trip to Japan three years ago. Re-consider the jar of preserved lemons you got as a wedding favor five years ago. It's brown, you have no idea how to use it, and it takes up energetic space in your kitchen. Toss it. Here are the basic guidelines for de-cluttering your food:
  
  • if it has expired
    
  • if it has not been used in the last 6-12 months
    
  • if it has duplicates (combine containers if possible)
    
• Take all of what remains and wipe it down with a warm, moist cloth. For containers of oil, for example, that may have a film, you might need to use a cleanser (something earth-friendly diluted with warm water) to cut through the grease.

With more than 200 participants, this is a real community effort. I'm excited about getting our kitchen back in shape: because I love to cook so much, it's the room I spend the most time in. I'm not naturally a tidy or organized person, but I've found that the more streamlined my space, the less stressed I am. I'll be blogging my efforts here.