Kitchen Experiment, Week 1

A few weeks ago, I decided that I no longer cared to bear the brunt of Kitchen Duty alone. I realized that the whole family should be taking part in this aspect of our lives.

First, I asked for help with the dishes. Our dishwasher has been out of commission for a while, and I don't have a lot of interest in replacing it in the foreseeable future (unless we win the lotto, in which case I will happily get a beautiful dishwasher for the maid to use). I asked Lauren and Jeff to each pick one night a week to clean up, and Sarah to take two nights. That's still three nights for me, which is fine. 

There are two provisions:

1. If you don't get it done on your night, you will also be responsible for it the next day. So far, I'm the only one who has fallen down on the job there.
2. If you can't or just don't want to do the dishes on your night, it is your responsibility to find someone to cover for you. Negotiate a trade of days or cash payout, but get it done. 

So far, this plan is going quite well. It's verging on pathetic how happy I am at having someone else clean up. The only trade so far was last night, when I asked Jeff if he could help Lauren with her science lesson (kinetic energy, potential energy, energy transfer--I didn't have the energy for it) in return for my taking his night at the sink.

The other part of Kitchen Duty is making dinner. I like cooking, but I get so bored with making the same things over and over. The girls are certainly old enough to pick up the slack in the kitchen.

So in addition to cleaning up, each girl also gets to cook dinner once a week. This isn't as much a time savings for me right now, but I think it will pay off. One difficulty is that I have classes four evenings a week, so timing is challenging.

Last week was the first time I asked what they wanted to make on their respective nights. Sarah said "pancakes & bacon" and Lauren said, "biscuits & gravy."  Hm. Not the healthiest, but for the first week, ok.

Sarah was making her dinner as I ran out the door to work (she's made both pancakes and bacon before, and I supervised the batter ingredients, so I wasn't too concerned); when I got home, there were three very crispy pieces of bacon left. She said that she ate the burned pieces herself. I've noticed that both girls tend to get distracted and forget about the food while it's cooking.

Lauren did her cooking on the weekend, because I knew she'd need substantial guidance making it. We used canned biscuits, because I didn't think we should do more than one recipe at a time. She did a good job with the gravy, but when it came time to eat, she said, "I don't actually like gravy very much."

Um. . .  whose child are you, and why exactly did you ask to make that?

At any rate, I'd call the first week of our Kitchen Experiment a moderate success. Week 2: Potato Skins and Tomato Soup.