Rules of the Kitchen

Rules of the Kitchen

Here are some common-sense kitchen rules you can use in your own kitchen and your own life to keep you safe, sane, and productive.

Kitchen Safety Rules

• Don’t be afraid of new food.
• Never hand someone the blade end of a knife, scissors or other sharp objects.
• Keep pot handles facing towards the stove, not facing out.
• To prevent cross-contamination, use different cutting boards for meats and vegetables. If you don’t have more than one cutting board, cut vegetables first, and meat last.
• Don’t put the glass you just used in the sink. Put a little water in it and leave it on the counter by the sink. Why? Glass breaks easily, and the sink is not a safe place with other dirty dishes sometimes sliding around on top of each other. There’s nothing like putting your hands in soapy dishwater and finding a broken glass.
• If you burn yourself, immediately plunge the affected area in cold water. This stops the cooking process. You can then apply Noxema to cool down and help heal the burn. If you are badly burned, do not hesitate to call 911, and keep the area under cold water until help arrives.
• Wear a full apron, not just one around your waist. Wearing a full apron for one keeps your clothes clean, and it also prevents getting burned by drops of hot oil that may come out when you put something in hot fat, even a little butter for sauteing can sometimes surprise you and splatter.
• An important rule in the kitchen, no pets are allowed. It’s easy for a person to trip over a pet, and if the person is holding something hot that spills, both you and your pet can be seriously injured.

Life in General Rules

• If you have to go closely behind someone, it’s a good idea to say “Behind you”. That way, the person is not going to turn around suddenly with a pot of hot food and get it all over you.
• Never run with a sharp object in your hand. It doesn’t make any difference whether you are two or ninety-two, you can still injure yourself.
• If you are in a crowded situation, and you need to get through, only in an emergency, you can say “Hot Food!” and people will naturally move away from you. Yes, even on the bus.

Boring (but important) Copyright Stuff

• Do you want to use parts of this blog somewhere else? You may do so, but you must give proper attribution and provide a link to the relevant text.
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• If you want to email a recipe to a friend, please send them a link to the recipe. Don’t send the recipe itself. We ask you to do this because a recipe might be edited at a later date.
• However, if you want to put a recipe in a book, post a review, repost it, put it somewhere else, or put it on another website, then you MUST ask permission by emailing me at thegoodplat[email protected]. In that email, you must give me the URL of the site or page you want to put the recipe on. Once you have received approval, you must give the original copyright to The Good Plate and provide a link to the original recipe. Trust me, if I find one of my recipes in a book, or if I have found out you are using a recipe for commercial purposes, you will be sued.
• If you want to use a photo, you must ask for permission. See above.
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