Quote Originally Posted by Pleater View Post
And I thought that men only claimed not to understand women so as to get out of helping with the washing up.

Or loading and unloading the dishwasher.

For a long happy marriage do not put the sharp knives into the washing up bowl, or always place them in the cutlery basket point down - there have been fatalities.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:
As an accomplished bachelor cook who is about to have three teenaged live-ins, this one goes all three ways. It isn't a boy thing or a girl thing or a child thing, to me. I'll try and come at the underlying theme in a general way.

Anyone who uses tools, I think, has some tools that just aren't available for loan. They are too valuable, too useful, they are too familiar; there is just something about them.

A blacksmith might have thirty hammers on the wall next to the forge, but there are two or three the apprentice doesn't get to swing until (s)he is a master.

A photographer might have 4-5 camera bodies and 20 or 30 lenses, and joyfully anticipate teaching a step child the craft, but there is going to be a lense or two in that collection that is for much later.

In the kitchen, I take responsibility for my saute pan, my balloon whisk and my knife block. Everything esle is subject to unusual wear and tear at the hands of those learning to function in the kitchen. But the reverse is each of those things I have to clean and put away before the students arrive in the kitchen. If they are left out and dirty for the students to learn on, that is my fault.

In our kitchen there are three other "skillets", two other whisks, and a vast array of other kitchen knives. Everyone in the house has the freedom and the tools to take on a more complex recipe than they have ever before attempted, with or without assistance.

As far as having knives in the washing up bowl, I left that behind when I started buying good knives for my cooking passion. My good knives are either 1) stored clean in my knifeblock, 2) being hand washed right now or 3) in use. Only. Likewise I have asked firmly that my good knives are to be used in the kitchen only, over a cutting board only to cut food only. We'll see how long that lasts.

I am not moving in until after the wedding, but I suspect sharing the bathroom will offers as many pitfalls as sharing the kitchen. Both the kitchen and the bathroom I think are shared resources that can not reasonably "belong" to any individual.

My sister solved the kitchen by requiring her non-cooking spouse (and now two children) to each make one meal every week. And clean up after themselves. Her household has reached a concensus equillibrium regarding the general state of the kitchen at her arrival.