AIBU to not leave the kitchen spotless once I have finished prepping dinner?

[ablastfromthepast]

Settle an argument.

When you have finished prepping and serving dinner (ie, dinner is on the table ready to eat) is it normal to still have bits and pieces to clear up in the kitchen, or would you expect the kitchen to be left as you found it (pots in dishwasher, surfaces wiped down, all items used in meal preparation away?)

I am the cook, all meal preparation with rare exception falls to me. I will call DH and DC when dinner is on the table. We have a few different dietary needs in the house so I am often making 2-3 different meals or variations, and I am not a naturally tidy chef, so in the process of trying to get dinner on the table for everyone at the same time, there’s usually a bit of tidying up to be done after dinner.

DH will often come down after I call him for dinner and huff about the mess and start tidying up rather than sitting down to eat, He thinks that it should be possible to tidy-up-as-you-go and by the time dinner is served, the kitchen is basically as you found it.

I think this unreasonable and it is to be expected that there will be some clearing up to do after dinner. Who is right?

YABU - you should be able to tidy-as-you-go and leave a neat kitchen
YANBU - clearing up after dinner is to be expected

I clean as I go with chopping boards etc but if cooking a mess of chilli and rice - even if everything else is in dishwasher, as I serve up there is now a saucepan that I cooked the chilli in soaking in the sink. The rice pot and a sieve and a couple of spoons or ladles etc are there to clear up afterwards.

no big deal to do after the meal.

if it’s such a big deal to him seems he needs to take over all cooking duties.

In our house, whoever doesn’t cook has to wash up what can’t go in the dishwasher and wipe the surfaces. If I’m cooking then I try and get what I can in the dishwasher as I go along. One DC sets the table and the other clears and scrapes the plates.

I try and clean as I go, but I’m not going to wash up a pan I’ve just used when serving dinner. So there will always be bits to tidy up after dinner. Tell him he’s welcome to cook for a month to show you how it’s done. Idiot 🙄

That idiot is him, not you 🤣

I tidy as I go, usually not completely but things tend to be neatly stacked.

This is why we have a door between the kitchen and the family room, where the dining table is. I resisted knocking ot all through, despite the architects exhortations.

I agree. I tidy as I go because it stresses me out a bit to be left with a mess in the kitchen after I've eaten

We also have a rule in our house that whoever cooks cleans up their own cooking stuff

This rule was implemented by me because when I'm done there is the odd thing left over to clean up, but when DH cooks the entire kitchen and everything in it is a tip - it's like paddington Bear attempted to cook a banquet dinner. I cannot deal with it after I've eaten a big meal. Also cannot relax until kitchen is sorted.

Works ok for us - I guess everyone does their own thing but it has to work for both people. None of this passive-aggressive muttering to oneself whilst clearing up with other people trying to relax over dinner stuff.

Ha yes, you have to be on the same page. Given our 'chef doesn't do the final wash up' strategy, I've successfully trained DP not to use every single sodding kitchen item we own, and to wash as he goes, same as i do. It works fine now.

We are one of each in this house, I’m like you and leave a mess but DH when cooking will easily clean as he goes and leave it very clean and tidy. We just accept that of each other

This!

Your DH seems to be at one extreme, of expecting a kitchen to be spotless, but you give the impression of being someone who is at the other extreme of leaving the kitchen like a bomb site.

My DP does most of the cooking because he usually gets home from work before I do. I'm happy to do the washing up but do get fed up of things like putting bottles and jars back in kitchen cupboards or cleaning kitchen surfaces which would have only needed a quick wipe if spills had been mopped up straight away. I find fishing random items out of the sink (eg kidney beans that have landed in there when he's opened a tin to drain it and a few things have fallen out) particularly irritating.

I certainly don't leave the kitchen pristine when I've cooked but I tidy up as I go along so that DP just needs to do the washing up.

I think it is somewhere in between! I clear up all prep items and surfaces as I go but the dishes/pans that the food has just come out of e.g. saucepans/roasting pan etc will need clear up afterwards.

This is a great idea if you cook equal amounts. We do (DH possibly more than me), but in many households only one person does the cooking so it would be unfair if they also had to clear up

I used to lodge with a family as a student and the woman expected me to clean up before I ate the dinner I'd just cooked, with it sitting there on the table getting cold.

I thought she was insane.

aside from the tidying issue, people who think it is ok to start faffing around with other stuff, or do not respond to requests to come to the table when a meal prepared by someone else is on the table are beyond rude

If you're a competent cook it's very easy to tidy as you go. Obviously it's not going to be completely pristine but it's incredibly annoying when people can't cook without leaving the kitchen in a state - I always think it's a rather passive-aggressive act to draw attention to the effort involved in the cooking.

Cook, eat, clean.

Or ideally, cook, eat, and get someone else to clean

Yes this is us - on the rare occasion DH cooks he will prioritise tidying-as-he-goes whereas my priority is getting everything plated up together and served hot not sitting around. He thinks my way is wrong and the norm should be tidy.

An example tonight which prompted moaning from DH. Very simple dinner of pasta, a ready-made-jar of sauce with cheese and a few fresh herbs. Due to dietary requirements/preferences one wants the pasta with butter and no sauce and I had to use 3 different kinds of cheese,.

During prep I had - put away pasta, rinsed the sauce jar and put it in recycling, put bits used in dishwasher (knife, chopping board etc), got out butter herbs, cheese and put them away again. When DH came down there was:

• a pan on the hob from which I had served the pasta.

-a block of cheese and a grater (which one of the DC had got out after I had plated up and sat down, as apparently I hadn’t given him the right kind of cheese) and some grated cheese on the work surface -some cardboard packaging I had overlooked putting in the recycling.

To me that was all minor stuff to be sorted after eating.

I would be happy to leave the cooking to DH if he had any complains.

That's really not messy at all. He's being ridiculous.

Exactly this.

My DH does most of the cooking in our house and the mess afterwards drives me crazy. He uses 3 chopping boards when it could be 1 and never tidies up as he goes. Kitchen is genuinely a bombsite. But I wouldnt be rude enough to say anything seeing as hes just cooked. He does usually clean up afterwards as well - if the clear up was left to me i might have something to say - tactfully!

Based on this, he’s being unreasonable. That’s not much left out.

Is he generally a kind and decent person or not really?

Oh my goodness I couldn’t imagine a tidy kitchen after making dinner! Kitchen is always a mess when we eat dinner, partner knows it’s his job to get everything washed up and cleaned up after 😀

YANBU.

The people on here saying they clean as they go are to my mind missing the point: when someone cooks a meal for you (especially one that takes your dietary requirements and preferences into account), the correct response is to thank them and show appreciation by eating it whilst it's hot, not to moan.

This goes double or triple for when there's the person you are married to and who you supposedly love and respect, and whose time you therefore appreciate.

I do accept that being cooked for can be annoying if it involves the generation of truly egregious mess that you are then expected to clear up. I do recall as a kid for example that the rare times my dad cooked, he seemed to use every pot and pan going and leave the kitchen utterly disgusting in a way that rather negated the nice gesture from my mum's perspective. I get mildly irritated when my own DH cooks and doesn't take what I see as sensible measures to minimise the utter chaos.

But I'd still thank him for the meal itself!
Nor does this sound like your situation. You're not a robot - you're a person, a wife and a mum cooking food for your family, and I think it would be utterly unreasonable to expect any meal (let alone 2-3 variations to accommodate different dietary needs!) to be served in a coordinated manner with the kitchen simultaneously looking like it hasn't been used. This sounds controlling and ungrateful on the part of your husband and I would not agree to cook for someone who treated me like this.

I definitely do most of the cooking in our house, but since I clear up as I go along I really don't mind doing the clearing up at the end - there's only the odd pan and the kids stick their dishes in the dishwasher.

Anything to avoid dealing with the chaos of DH's post apocalyptic desecration of the kitchen after his occasional cooking !

Our (my!) other problem is that I want to clean up straight after dinner whereas he'd watch TV then clear up after.

So in general I prefer it when I cook and clean !

Tell him this is music to your ears and cooking and clean up is now his job. You're looking forward to him taking your place.

Then let him. No cooking for you.