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Kitchen Duty: My most dreaded and detested task is _____.


I’ve known people who insist that they adore everything about cooking and working in their kitchens. They have adamantly denied having a single thing they hated doing in their kitchens. But, a little probing and prompting has never failed to reveal at least one task which, for that person, was a genuine chore. It seems to be a very personal thing, and does not necessarily have any real rhyme or reason.

It might be the stereotypical oven cleaning. Or, the equally cliché scrubbing of crusty pots and pans. I’ve even heard much grumbling and groaning over something as seemingly innocuous as emptying the dishwasher. Every. Single. Day.

Sometimes it even involves food prep. Many, many passionately devoted cooks will admit they despise chopping garlic or onions. A surprising number of people find it revolting to handle raw poultry. Even something as simple as shredding cheese with a box grater is not off limits.

So let’s hear it Serious Eaters. Get it off your chest. Reveal you deep, dark kitchen nightmares here. You may or may not find out others share your secret, but you’re sure to be amused and entertained by the *silly* things other people hate doing.

;-)


p.s., here's a shout out to JEP!

56 Comments:

OK, I don't know if this counts, but I hate cleaning the floor. It has to get to a disgraceful stage before I clean it. Otherwise, anytime spent in the kitchen is FUN!

- Emptying the dishwasher
- Peeling and cubing a winter squash
- De-boning a pork shoulder (need to work on my knife skills!)
- Sweeping and mopping the floors after cooking a complicated meal (I'm a bit fastidious about the cleanliness of my kitchen)

I despise de-veining shrimp. Grosses me out.

Yup, cleaning the floor is the task I dread most.

Cleaning the oven is the worst. Which is why I never do it.

Washing dishes by hand. Guess who doesn't have a dishwasher?

I love sweeping, drying dishes and everything about actually cooking - anything that would be icky to cook (like, I don't know, sweetbreads), I just dont't cook. : )

The floor, no question. I'm thinking a bigger dog might be the answer to that one. My OH does all the dishes now, and I am cooking more and better all the time because of it!

unloading the dishwasher. hate, hate, hate. don't really know why either, since it doesn't take long. but i'd rather clean toilets than unload the damn thing.

Emptying the dishwasher and cleaning out the fridge are my two least favorite Kitchen chores.

BTW, guess I should mention the task in MY kitchen that prompted this topic...

Two words: VERTICAL SURFACES. I hate washing down walls, cabinet fronts, and refrigerator and dishwasher doors (stainless steel, drips and fingerprints, ugh).

But most of all, I absolutely DESPISE cleaning the backsplash behind my stove. First, I'm not overly tall, so it's hard for me to reach. Second (and much worse), it is comprised of many small 3-inch unpolished, rough-cut natural slate tiles with wide, coarse grout lines, and studded with even smaller 1-inch rustic glass tiles. It's gorgeous. It looks great with my dark granite, dark cabinets, and softens the harshness of my stainless steel appliances. It also sucks up grease. It shreds my rags when I scrub it. It is an all around bitch to clean. WTF was I thinking when I picked THAT stuff??? Talk about a major lapse in judgment...

Obviously, this is today's looming task. I'm presently in avoidance mode, which is why I'm sitting here with my laptop chatting on SE. But soon... very soon... sob...
:-(

Dishes. Oh god, dishes are my nemesis. I'd rather clean the toilet (and often do) instead of doing dishes. I have no dishwasher (either mechanical or human) so I avoid the task until the last possible minute (i.e. I'm eating out of pots with chopsticks).

I hate taking out the trash! And it doesn't help that I live in an aprtment with no set trash days (just a big trash compacter/dumpster), so I'll let the trash bag sit until I have two full bags!

Admittedly, I use plastic supermarket bags for my trash so they're little, but still it ain't pretty.

Sigh...my least favourite kitchen chores are also unrelated to cooking - cleaning the hood (for as little as I pan-fry anything, it can become surprisingly oily), top of the cabinets (the wall between the cabinets and the ceiling is tiled, and we only have pretty decorative stuff on top of the cabinets, so it's supposed to be easy to clean...but it's still a pain!) and at times, the cabinets themselves. Ah, what the heck, add the floor to that list, too.

Can I also add that I really hate a mess, and my OH's vision of "clean" does not exactly coincide with with mine, and the pups don't really do that many household chores (other than cleaning their own plates:-)), so I am the one who always ends up being stuck with all my least favourite things to do?

@LoCo - whenever I see a "_____" question, I inevitably think of JEP:-)

LoCo try using a soft scrub brush on those tiles rather than a rag. wont shred and if you dip it in a white vinegar solution it might do a better job on the grease. My most hated job is peeling potatoes with unloading the dishwasher a very close second. I have no idea why, and I love having a dishwasher after many years without, but I hate unloading the dang thing. LOL And as for potatoes I try to buy the new ones with the thin skin so I can cook them skin on and tell SO the peels have all the nutrients, so eat them and shup!

I sound like a loser but I like to clean my kitchen and fridge often because it makes the kitchen experience much more pleasant for me if I have uncluttered surfaces and a clean-view of my ingredients.

I REALLY hate to cut onions; but since I do a better job than my BF--it's my duty :-(

I'm going to go with beating egg whites until they become stiff....it takes forrrreverrrrrrr and it's NOT fun!

Hillary
chew On That

P.S. I also hate cleaning the dishes :)

-cleaning the stove top surface, grates and burner covers
-cleaning the top of the fridge
-cleaning under the stove and fridge (yuck)
-cleaning the grout in my tile flooring (DONT GET TILE FLOORS)
-cleaning the broiler pan
-chopping onions (a million times I've done this and they still burn my eyes like crazy, sharp knife or not)

Whew!

Hey Cookiegrl13 - How DO you clean out the grout in tile flooring - any and all tips greatly appreciated.

I'm with French Tart. HATE emptying the dishwasher. Weird, I know. If the kids haven't emptied it, I can't clean the kitchen. And, unfortunately, I'm not a clean freak.

@bareneed, i use mr clean magic erasers for the grout in my tile floor. i used to sit there with an old toothbrush and some Comet or Ajax, but that never worked.

Cutting the fat off chicken grosses me out.

I hate cleaning the stove! Cleaning the fridge is a close second.

The two best things I've found for grout, especially in the kitchen, are ammonia (cuts grease) OR OxiClean (fights the grunginess). Don't use them together, though. It's an either or proposition.

Also, there's an enzyme product called Kids'n'Pets that works pretty well at getting red wine stains out of grout (please don't ask me how I know).

@huney, yes I do use a brush to scrub, but I still have to use rags to rinse it all off, and no matter what kind I use, they leave little bits behind. It's a REALLY rough, uneven surface. Next kitchen will have a solid surface backsplash, trust me!

Add me to the list of people who hate cleaning the stovetop. Mine is a major PITA to clean. Oh sure, it's big and powerful and pretty and all, but it was clearly designed by someone who doesn't know the first thing about *real* cooking and the resultant cleaning challenges. Aaargh.

i hate cleaning my floors also. hate it so much that i rarely do it.
i love doing dishes, but i hate washing spatulas. whenever i'm going to cook something that requires using a spatula, i think of whether i can cook an alternative- something using a wooden spoon.

Another vote for washing the dishes in my teensy kitchen with no dishwasher. So I tend to let them pile up, which only makes the task worse when I get to it (and they don't all fit on the drying rack!). I don't mind the other cleaning tasks, just the dishes.

When I was little, I used to volunteer to mop the kitchen floor. I probably cleaned it 2-3 times a week, it was so fun! Now I don't clean it but bi-weekly, but it's still no big deal.

I'm with the majority... I DETEST cleaning/mopping the floor. Our home is large and it is a bitch to do the floors. The housekeeper spent 8 hours and got all the floors to sparkle. Sure she did other stuff, but really concentrated on the floors. She was on her hands and knees FOREVER - I felt so bad for her, I gave her extra $$$ in her enveIope. I have been hemming and hawing to invest in a steamer but have not found one with great reviews all around. Anyone out there have any suggestions for a great steam mop, please let me know! I am desperate!!!

bareneed -

First problem was, my new floor wasnt sealed...didnt know that... so everytime I washed the floor (with floor cleaner (that I didnt know I wasnt supposed to use..Mr Clean and the like)) the grout got worse. I talked to one tile flooring store who told me to use ammonia and water...which I did, using a hard toothbrush. (fun day). It came out pretty good, then I sealed the grout, but the appearance didnt last. As all companies I talked to said to stay away from floor cleaner, to never use bleach (as it evntually breaks up the grout), and since I didnt want to go the ammonia route again (which the same company later claimed that they DIDNT recommend using ammonia-URG) I broke down and called Stanley Steemer. They did a reallly good job and also re-sealed the grout. They left (for free) a bottle of the cleaner they used, and that's what I have now....

Thank you all for the tips - my tile floor is 25 years old and is in both my kitchen and the front hallway, leading to the kitchen. We have just ordered a new, deluxe kitchen, with everything plus the kitchen sink! The price is astronomical, so I am trying to avoid replacing the kitchen floor because I would have to replace the hallway as well and it would be cost-prohibitive. I live in Canada and we don't have Stanley Steemer, however, I will check to see if we have something similar.

Sorry to the foodies for using up space talking about cleaning - but - at least I am still in the kitchen!

Two.
Drying dishes. I would prefer to just let them sit out and air dry, but when there's a lot of dishes and NO counter space, sometimes you must dry.

Washing utensils. Spoons, forks, knives, spatulas, anything. I absolutely can't stand washing them. It's so tedious, but I feel the need to deal with that tedium because little grosses me out more when about to eat than finding a fork with a grain of rice stuck to it.

I guess my grout is sealed - I have tile floors almost everywhere in the house (save for bamboo in the bedroom), I absolutely love them, partly because they are very easy to clean and I never (thankfully!) had any grout-cleaning problems!

@LoCo - I so agree about vertical surfaces (which is precisely why cabinet-cleaning made it to my list of the least-favourite kitchen chores :-))!!!!

I hate moving my fridge and my corner rack to clean under and behind them--the greasy dust bunnies freak me out. Maybe I should move them every time I mop the floor. One thing I have used in the past on my tile floor for a real scrubbing without so much work is our Hoover carpet cleaner. It works on hard surface floors, but I make sure to leave it on the carpet setting so the brushes spin and still scrub--we have ceramic tile that I'm not worried about scratching. I also use super hot water (steaming) when I use it or when I mop the floor.

sifting. i can't stand sifting!!

Luckily my husband does all the things I hate to do: floors, scrubbing pots, cleaning the tops of things. He is the OCD one who will stick with a nasty job and I am the artisitic one who creates the awesome food.(wink) He also cleans up after dinner so I start with a sparkling clean kitchen every morning. I recommend a housemate who cleans as a favorite kitchen tool.

ocarol, I am in awe. That's a partnership. My floor is soon-to-be-80-year-old-terrazzo, and I love it. I hate cleaning cabinets; they're wood, although not as old as the rest of the house, and DH and his late wife were both heavy smokers, so when I arrived, I'm convinced the stuff is STILL oozing out of the grain of the wood. At least the smell has gone away; DH quit smokng just before we got married (14 years tomorrow!) and has STAYED that way, bless him. (For the first 10 years of our marriage, I literally had a yearly nightmare about him starting again. But I digress. As I so often do.)

I HATE putting away leftovers. It really irks me. UUGGHHH!!! I would rather lick my kitchen floor clean than have to find containers, scrape, seal, etc... Hubby gets stuck with this job.

I have a list:
peeling and deveining shrimp
cleaning the crispers
washing the cavity of a whole chicken and finding organs still attached
washing out may jars

I don't like to unload the dishwasher. Don't know why, just don't. The dishes will pile in my sink before I move them over. It's a terrible habit that I can't seem to break! (But if the dishwasher is empty, I load it immediately because I love clean counters.) I'm not big on floors either but I have a small kitchen so it doesn't take much time.

My least favorite thing is cleaning out the strainer in the sink...esp when its full of random foodstuffs...accck

I hate it when I'm in the midst of some cooking project, and I drop something or spill something that needs to be cleaned up right now. It ruins the rhythm.

When I'm in the mood to clean, I don't mind cleaning. But I have to be in that mood. Otherwise, I'm fine with a little flour dust in a corner.

When I was a kid, I used to HATE washing dishes. Mom wasn't much good about cleaning up, although she was a good cook. She'd insist that things needed to "soak" and that she'd wash up later. Sometime "later" didn't come, and there wouldn't be a clean fork in the house, and the sink would be filled with soaking dishes covered with scum. And you never knew what you'd find in the water. Maybe a knife ready to stab you, maybe some nasty goo. And there were no rubber gloves, so you just had to dig in there. Worse yet, sometimes she'd pile dirty dishes into a big pot or roasting pan and put them into the oven or leave them on the stove with the cover on the pot. You'd be looking for a clean glass or a fork or a dish, and there was nothing. Then you'd see the pots....ugh.

Now, whatever fits in the dishwasher goes in there, and if anything doesn't fit, it gets hand washed right after dinner. And of course, there are some things that are always hand washed.

i wish i had a dishwasher to empty. i hate dishes, the top of the stove/hood, and the fridge. when my bf ask's what the experiment is on the bottom shelf i figure it's time to clean. the floor is food free thanks to a dog we call hoover at meal time.

HATE:
- handwashing dishes. this is what the bf is for.
- scrubbing the stovetop. this is what the bf is for.

While sometimes my bf's neatfreak-ishness makes me feel like a lazy, guilty slob, it often just makes me think "what a perfect match - I cook, he cleans :P"

I also am not fond of making meatballs. It doesn't take that long, but my mom always had me do it when I was a kid. (un)Fortunately, we raised our own beef and hunted, so we always had a deep freeze full of technically organic beef and venison ... but it rarely thawed the whole way out by the time we used it so my hands would just get FROZEN trying to work the ingredients in and form the meatballs. I use turkey these days since I'm off the farm and don't hunt (and lay off the red meat more often than not) - and I'm cheap :) ... so I try to make meatballs with fresh, fully thawed meat. That or I have the bf do it! :)

scrubbing the kitchen floor. good thing i have a granite floor that hides dirt better than a witness protection program.

Washing big pots or greasy pans
Cleaning the stove
Cleaning lettuce... I registered for a salad spinner for my wedding

Peeling apples. I was doing it with a vegetable peeler, and cut the top of my left pinky in half vertically. cuts dont usually bother me, but this one bled like a mother, and now I have a sensitive upside down J on my little finger.

Defrosting the refrigerator - oh wait - it self defrosts now. I hated, hated, hated that job. Now, I hate the deep cleaning of the refrigerator where you have to remove the shelves and drawers and all the contents are on the counters. I must admit I don't empty the freezer as often as I did when I had to defrost it and forget some things that end up getting freezer burn.

I didn't have a dishwasher for awhile and missed it, but find myself still hand washing nearly everything, but I do detest washing silverware when there is a lot of it - like after a dinner party. It hurts my hands.

Have you ever been tempted to clean your cabinets with spray furniture polish? It cleans grease and leaves a nice sheen and makes your floor so slippery it's nearly impossible to remain vertical, and your posterior will smart for some time to come.

It would have to be a toss up between doing the dishes and cleaning the oven.

@cookiegirl13, bareneed, french tart, and anyone else wondering about cleaning grout on tile floors, have I got a story for you: remember those neon-colored Kool-Aid Bursts? I somehow once convinced my mother to finally buy a couple for my sister and me. Needless to say, one of us spilled one all over the kitchen floor, making a horrible sticky mess. But ... guess what bleaches white kitchen floor grout better than Clorox or anything else? *shudders* God only knows what it did to our stomachs.

I dislike peeling and de-veining shrimp, especially since I don't eat shrimp anymore because of a weird food sensitivity.

@kfarrel3...I've heard of various cleaning chores that Kool Aid powder is supposed to be good for, so it's funny to hear that Kool Aid Bursts worked on grout. A pack of lemonade Kool Aid in the dishwasher is supposed to work wonders (put it in the detergent dispenser and run the dishwasher empty - lemonade is the only recommended flavor for this job). Believe it or not, I've also read that someone, somewhere tried using a packet of Kool Aid to clean their toilet bowl. (How do people think to try these things??? LOL)

Making coffee,we either cold brew or it is the prima donna of an expresso machine.Both require proactive ? and organization,not relaxing.

The care and feeding of TALL FRAGILE STEMWARE,after a big evening not the best way to finish up.

All of you with the floor issues,the daily cheat here is drop one wet/damp towel/rag on the floor,push it around sort of thoroughly,drop in laundry basket.The kitchen floor area is half wood,half terrazzo,comes out very OK between serious cleanings

I cannot stand to make scrambled eggs. They are my husband's favorite food, and I cannot for the life of me get over the gag factor of cooking them and smelling them. And I do really like eggs...really. I just hate hate hate cooking them.
I also hate deveining shrimp.
But, I grin and bear both of these tasks...to enjoy the end result.

@PerkyMac -- LOL about the furniture polish on the floor! I just dry swiffered my wood floors but I sprayed Orange Glo wood furniture polish on the pads first and now I have to wear rubber soled shoes on my floors because we're all sliding around like Champions on Ice in our socks! My poor kids can hardly stand up! And let's not even mention the dog...it's like something out of a cartoon...his legs are moving rapidly but he's not going anywhere!

Cleaning the inside of my fridge.

Prepping garlic.

Peeling potatoes, squash or apples. Heck, peeling anything in quantity.

Dealing with the remains of a chicken or turkey carcass after a large meal.

@juliebugamama ~ I had (have) a solid oak staircase. I had waxed the steps and was buffing them with an electric buffer - wearing socks on my feet. Can you guess where this story ends? The base of my spine hit every step until I finally landed on the floor. I think it took an hour - at least that's how it felt. I already had a bad back and that caused a ruptured disc. I then had the treads covered with carpet and just left the oak risers for their beauty.

My friend has a very hard tile floor and when her dogs drool (yuk) it gets so slippery that rubber soled shoes slide like ice skates. She has fallen numerous times.

When I was a kid, Mom used to wax the floor, then we'd put on our father's hunting socks and "skate" around to buff the floor. I hope your kids are having fun, but be careful. I've seen the poor doggies trying to walk on slippery surfaces - I feel sorry for them, but it's oh so hilarious!

@holdthemayo -- Haha, that's hilarious. I really don't know who thinks of these things. At least in my case, it was an accident. And -- can't lie -- it did end up getting me out of trouble for making a mess, since my mom had pretty much given up on that grout by that point. =)

Well, I'm in agreement with those of you who said that emptying the dishwasher is the worst chore. The reason for this being that my husband is a wee bit hard of hearing and, with our everyday living room being within easy earshot of the kitchen, he refuses to run the dishwasher while he is awake. So, we wash the dishes while we are asleep and I do not get to them until I get home from work the next evening. I *HATE* emptying the damned dishwasher just so I can cook dinner and add more dirties to it.

*wiping eyes* Perky & Juliebugsmama have my sides splitting.

I hate cleaning the refrigerator. I also hate *gag* cleaning *gag* dungeoness crab *gag*. It's a bit like dissecting a gigantic bug. Starship Troopers, anyone?

And I agree with everyone else on emptying the blessed dishwasher!

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