Kitchen Organization

Works for Me Wednesday has a theme this week: kitchen organization. Wow, this is not my forte. In the kitchen I’m like the person with piles all over his desk who still knows where to find what he needs. I know where everything is, but I frequently can’t even articulate to someone else where to find things. For instance, why is my cheese grater on the top shelf of the pantry, next to the crème brulee blowtorch? Well, it’s tall and doesn’t fit anywhere else, of course. And the blowtorch? Where else would you put a blowtorch in a house with small boys?

The one thing I think I’ve done well in the kitchen is to turn the butler’s pantry into Snack Boy Central. We have a butler’s pantry because that’s the way the house was built, way back in 1940 (that’s old for Houston, girls). Everything the boys might want to eat that not in the fridge is kept there. One side is sweet and the other is salty; the plastic kid-dishes are in the bottom drawer, easy for them to reach. The counter doesn’t have anything breakable or dangerous on it, so when Two climbs up onto it to peruse the shelves he’s not near the knives or anything like that.

I have to say this arrangement worked better when they were younger. Now that they’re 5 and 8 they really have the run of the entire kitchen. They use regular dishes and glasses instead of plastic, and can get their own sandwiches and cereal – they don’t need specially set-apart “snacks” anymore. But it was a good plan for a while, and that’s why it worked for me.