Friday Roundup #22: Winter Holiday Edition

Snail After the Winter Rain

The eight-day holiday of Chanukah ended last Saturday. My kids had vacation from school, but my husband took my 8-year-old to visit my father-in-law for a week. For about two weeks my apartment felt like a revolving door, between various guests and my kids’ schedules.

It’s hard to manage a kitchen in changing circumstances. Several times, I overcooked and struggled to finish it all.

I also had a major kitchen accident. In the middle of a cooking session, I noticed that a jar of noxious silver polish had fallen on its side and leaked onto a cabinet shelf. The liquid soaked into unopened bags of sugar and salt, which then spilled all over the floor. A lower cabinet shelf, the counter and everything on them were also dripped on. It took us over two hours to clean up.

This reinforced several lessons about preventing accidents:

  • Keep non-food items separate from food items. The polish was backed into a corner and shouldn’t have tipped over. In fact, it’s been there for over ten years without incident. But still.
  • Keep your cabinets uncluttered.
  • Avoid cooking under stress.

Fortunately the damage turned out to be minor.

Roundup of Posts on Cooking Manager for the week of December 20:

I wrote a guest post on 12 Tips for Saving Water in the Kitchen for the environmental blog Green Prophet.

On Sunday, I posted Ten Tips for Saving Water, Money and Energy in Your Dishwasher, including frugal replacements for dishwasher supplies.

On Tuesday (when I thought it was Wednesday), I posted a universal recipe: How to Make Patties from Anything and Everything.

To my readers those currently celebrating Christmas and the New Year, I hope they are all you wish for. May your food preparations go smoothly, with delicious results.