The Facade Of Clean Countertops.

The other day, Mrsvjw, a fellow blogger, referenced me in her Diary of the Suburban Hausfrau blog. She was wondering about the kitchens of food bloggers. What do they really look like? Are they actually neat? To quote: I know Rosie Hawthorne keeps a neat prep and cooking surface, but I can't. Or don't. Or just am not doing lately. I don't have it in me. I know Rosie isn't.... but are the rest just shoving things out of camera view, or relocating them to another room for the photo shoot...... or am I that bad of a hausfrau that I let that stuff pile up some times??

Ah, little do you know, Mrsvjw. It's all a facade. And take a chill pill, hon. Now, I'd like to think my kitchen counters are pristine, but alas, they are not. Unfortunately, I can be quite anal about my counter tops. I want them cleaned thoroughly before I can even begin to cook. Then I clean up as I go along. Then I can't eat until the counters are cleaned. But I never get them cleaned off enough. There's always something out there bothering me horribly. And when I blog, my photographs are judiciously cropped. Mr. Hawthorne is a different matter. He cooked tonight. We had shrimp, mussels, clams, and mahi-mahi. I only had mahi, since I wasn't that hungry. Take a look at Mr. Hawthorne's kitchen.

Here's his prep area:

He takes the entire kitchen to prep.

And he doesn't use nice cutting boards to make everything neat.

Everything is just all over the place.

And he doesn't clean up after himself.

I'm constantly going behind him and cleaning and washing up.

Here's the mahi mahi. Mr. H. has topped it with butter and onion rings and here he's drizzling it with his new favorite olive oil, Newman's Extra Virgin.

How's this for a trash can, Mrsvjw?

Daughter Hawthorne used to be embarrassed to have friends come over because of my kitchen trash can. Although, I still have a hard time getting past the irony of her disdain and embarrassment of my trash can and her OKness with what her bedroom actually looked like. Crazy kids.

I long ago lost the top to the trash can. And when I renovated the kitchen last year, I actually put in a cabinet just to hold a trashcan to appease Daughter Hawthorne. Know what? I never use that can in the cabinet. (And I could really use that space for something else.) I still use the nasty, dirty trash can without the top. Some habits die hard.

Mr. H. is preparing his butter/lemon sauce. Amongst my picked tomatoes, my moonflower seedling, my 409 granite cleaner, and some random baggie.

Mussels and clams.

And a lovely plated meal of corn on the cob, mussel, clam, shrimp with dipping sauce, and mahi mahi. Not that you'd ever know what the kitchen looked like while he was doing this. Drives me nuts. Mr. H. refuses ... REFUSES ... I tell you, to even make a mise en place. For crying out loud, his mise is all over the plahce. In case you're wondering, Mrsvjw, the leftover food is all put away, my dishes are washed, dried, and put away, and my counters, once again, are clean. No thanks to Mr. H.