[madameshawshank]

Very Very Occasionally I might be neat and tidy as I cook...wash as I go ~ put things back etc..however the basic MEness is messy!..

Now, let's see, I've still to make the tourte a la rhubarbe et a la fraise, so I'll see if I can do the almost unimaginable! The strawberries are from a local farm ~ sweet and luscious. I might sprinkle some chopped nuts through the fruit. Am listening to a broadcast of a one-day cricket game between Australia and New Zealand...such fun!

I wonder at the ratio of neat to messy c 'n zers!
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"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

[Judy]

madame, I'm one of those neat freaks when I cook, but I do have a small confession to add - I HATE cleaning my oven. I just gave myself an early Christmas present and paid to have someone come and do it. Best $88 I ever spent, and the oven now looks better than when it was new. I must just make a mental note not to cook roast pork in it anytime soon!

[melinda]

Partly because of limited counterspace, I am a clean as I go person too....but my 20 yr old daughter creates a huge mess when she cooks (I'm so glad she enjoys cooking that I don't say much....which is tough to do sometimes!)...

[Rainey]

I think I started out messy as could be when I was first learning to cook and didn't realize how important an element planning was (for me at least). Now, due to a very small galley-type kitchen and a horror of dealing with it all at once at the end, I come down closer to neat.

When it comes to the big feast sort of holiday thing, I'm neat as a pin through the days of early prep and the early-on-the-day operations. I'll run the dishwasher 2 or even 3 times over a 4-6 hour period. But in those last 30 minutes, it always gets away from me. Nevertheless, I'll run water and leave things in a full, soapy sink and I can usually manage to put my kitchen back in working order by the end of the day without doing much damage to the holiday buzz.

Planning saved my buns! But I'm *still* not a delegator -- I'm much more comfortable working solo in my kitchen. How about you?

[David]

Dick is always amazed that I can be working with flour in the kitchen and it will appear as if by magic two rooms away on the wood stove. I am to flour what Erin's dog is to hair! By the time i"ve got something into the oven the kitchen is a-splatter with ingredients both wet and dry and the sink is mounded with stuff---but I do clean up then, at least I don't procrastinate about it.
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

[wasabi]

My mother always scolded me for not cleaning as I go so naturally I was shocked when some friends I was cooking with accused me of being a neat freak in the kitchen -- there are just different standards, I guess.

When it comes to workspace, I will clean as I go and stack dishes/pots in the sinks. But I ABSOLUTELY HATE washing dishes. Luckily, when I'm cooking en masse, there is a willing and brave troop of well-fed folks who feel obliged to ease me of this burden.

[brighidsdaughter]

I have a small kitchen with very limited counter space, and no automatic dishwasher. I tend to be pretty neat in the kitchen, cleaning up as I go & using as few gadgets & utensils as possible. I may not wash all my pots and pans as soon as I'm done with them, but I at least rinse them so they don't have food bits left to harden. And I always have a sinkful of hot, soapy water to wash knives, cutting boards, and hands frequently. I think that's a holdover from working in a commercial kitchen and the catering business for a couple of years.

[Erin]

When I was in high school I worked at a bagel shop for a very picky demanding man. As much as I couldn't stand him I thank him for instilling the clean as you go system in me. It really came in handy in culinary school, at internships and jobs. For me it helps with speed. It also ties in with my mise en place, if it isn't exactly where I need it I tend to go slightly primadonna. I think Thomas Keller really has the right idea that everything should be sparkling clean and orderly at all times.

David, I like the comparison between Barney and flour.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[suki]

My first chef used to tell me: 'clean as you go, and you'll never have to go and clean'. i used to think: 'eh?', but after several months of using every utensil and working space in sight, I soon learned...the hard way. Now it's just a matter of routine, and by the time I have finished one project/dish/menu, it's quite common for me to have hardly anything to clean up at the end.

thank you mentors!