I never loved cooking—until I decluttered my kitchen. Here’s how simplifying my space helped me cook from scratch and eat better.
Mastering Cooking
There are some things in life that can have as much or as little impact on our lives as we allow. Their importance can change in different seasons of our lives, and we can develop them as much as we want. We can stick to the basics, or it can take a lifetime to master them.
One of those things is cooking.
I Have Never Liked Cooking
I have had a complicated relationship with cooking throughout my life. When I was a child and a teenager, I helped my family a lot in the kitchen, but I never felt confident cooking on my own—only the simplest things, like boiling pasta or frying eggs. Later, when I got married, I tried to cook, but I definitely wasn’t good at it. I had a lot to learn.
Most of my life I lived in Central Asia, where you are expected to be able to cook at least a little. So I learned how to prepare a few basic dishes and simply repeated them over and over again.
The Reasons I Despised Cooking
Although I consider myself a pretty good homemaker, cooking has never been my real passion. There were a few reasons for that. One of them was that I never thought I was good at it. I felt it was too risky—there was always a possibility of failure.
Another reason I didn’t like cooking was that it made my kitchen dirty and meant a lot of cleaning afterward. I used to keep many things on my countertops: salt, pepper, spices, oils, and kitchen appliances like a coffee maker, air fryer, toaster, and more. Because of that, every time I cooked it felt like everything got dirty—grime and flour dust were everywhere. And of course, after cooking I was too tired to clean. I didn’t like the state of my kitchen most of the time, but I didn’t know what to do.
Organizing And Decluttering
About two and a half years ago, I started learning about organizing and decluttering. I discovered that my countertops didn’t need to have all that stuff on them. I could actually store appliances in cabinets, and my mixing spoons and spatulas didn’t need to sit out on the counter. The dish-drying rack didn’t need to be there either—if I need to dry dishes on the countertop, I simply use a tea towel, the way my mom used to. I cleared my countertops, and now I keep very few items on them. I try to keep everything minimal. As a result, my kitchen is much easier to clean because it is simplified and streamlined.
I’m Not Overwhelmed With Cooking Anymore
About a year ago, I learned about the benefits of homemade bread and started baking at home. I bake sourdough bread with freshly milled flour. Just a few years ago, I would not have been able to imagine that I—someone with no real inclination toward cooking—would be willing to bake bread and do about 90% of my cooking from scratch. I believe this became possible only because I was no longer overwhelmed by cleaning every time I used my kitchen. Naturally, I now enjoy cooking much more and feel more open to experimenting and trying new recipes.
Decluttering has truly changed my life, and now it is changing my health and the health of my family—because we eat nutritious, healthy, homemade food made from scratch.