Vegan MoFo Day 2: Reality

Every MoFo, there’s a kitchen tour prompt. Today is that day.

I try to present a halfway decent-looking front on the ‘gram, but in reality, I am a messy bench. So in order to do this year’s kitchen tour, I cleaned up a little. Just a little.

Like, my gas range gets really gross. I think last year, or just sometime in the last year, I made a risotto with a cashew cream that boiled over (this may have even appeared in Instagram stories; I was bored and lonely and posting a ton of cooking videos for a while there) and I am pretty sure I didn’t actually fully clean that up until today.

The island that I do most of my work on–not to mention where the most-loved small appliances live–also houses a bunch of random stuff. You can’t really see, for example, the stack of kimchi containers my partner leaves there for snacking convenience. (He likes it funky.) And I tossed the too-far-gone avocados and discarded bags of stuff before wiping things down and scrubbing the cutting board. Like, if you’re a clean freak or a germophobe, just don’t come to my house, okay? I feel shame about it but also I just want to live my goddamn life.

There are plenty of areas that require attention. My pantry is a disorganized mess right now–not even accounting for whatever stuff is currently hosting a moth party, ugh–and it’s super annoying. And the fridge…

The fridge needs to be cleaned out all too frequently and it is my second least favorite household task (my least favorite is scrubbing the bathtub/shower). But that freezer? Fuck my entire life, the freezer is the bane of my existence. There’s too much random shit crammed in there (overripe bananas! ice packs from grocery delivery! half-used bags of frozen vegetables! homemade stuff in plastic containers that falls out when I’m trying to find something and the lid cracks!). But do I clean it out? NEV. ER.

But there is a kitchen chore I do bother with: the dishes. See? Look. Clean pots! A dishwasher! Plats and bowls in the cupboard!! (Also there’s the carbonator and some paper towels and this week’s tomato haul and oh yeah, the toaster oven.) Sure, there’s presently an army of goddamn fruit flies hovering over it, but I’ll get them. (Does wishing for the death of hundreds of very annoying insects in my food preparation area make me a bad vegan? Please don’t answer that. I’ll accept your unfollows or whatever.)

My kitchen is about 1/3 of the room in which I spend most of my time. There’s a dining table, animal habitats, elliptical (not working right now because of said animals), and a couch facing the TV. I may have mentioned I love TV? So this room is cozy.