Chapter 2 - 7 Steps for Working Faster in the Home Kitchen

7 Hacks for Working Faster in Your Home Kitchen

Working happy equals working fast with flow and efficiency. Over the years of working with clients and trying to get dinner on the table myself as a working mom, I have developed a few tips to get meal on the table faster.

Hack #1: Cutting Board Stays Out on Counter.

Buy the biggest and heaviest wooden cutting board you can afford and assign it a permanent place on your counter in the kitchen. This is the single most important step to working faster in your kitchen because it eliminates a step: getting the cutting board out from a cabinet.

Back in the 90s, I rented a cute apartment and the previous tenant left behind their big wooden cutting board. Score! I washed and sanitized it and put it away.

Every time I cooked, I dragged it out. I cleaned it and put it away. One day I dropped it on my big toe and almost broke it (the toe, not the cutting board). That was it. After the toe incident I left the cutting board out on the counter.

And then a funny thing happened. I started eating more foods, like fruits and vegetables, that needed to be cut. I was wasting less produce because it was eaten. I have been leaving the cutting board out on the counter ever since.

Wood is the best material for a cutting board. If you can, buy a wooden board that is heavy and as large as your space will accommodate. Glass cutting boards are not great because and they dull any knife blade. Plastic is fine and I use plastic when I am cutting raw meats. But wood is the superior and safest material for a cutting board.

Did I say it should be big? It should be BIG. As big as the designated space will allow. It should be heavy and not move around while you are cutting on it. If it does move around place a kitchen towel under to anchor it.

Clean it with warm, soapy water and if it starts to stink like onions that’s okay. Simply take some coffee grounds and smear them on the surface of the board for about a day. The coffee grounds will lift up the odors.

Trust me on this one. It’s a game changer.
 

Hack #2: Create Flow with Wash/Chop/Cook Order

For years we designed kitchens with the triangle idea that the three work functions of sourcing from a refrigerator, washing at the sink and cooking at the stove should be arranged into a triangle.

I prefer to design kitchens in a flow with the work stations designated as wash/chop/cook in a straight line. This way the cook in moving fast and efficiently “down the line” with minimal footsteps and no backtracking.

 Take a look at your kitchen and try to imagine it in three stations that are designated by the type performed there. Try, if at all possible, to place your cutting board between the sink and the cooktop. If that is not possible, try placing your cutting board next to your sink or your cooktop.

Hack #3. Be Well-Stocked.

Load your pantry, refrigerator and freezer with a complete staple list. I keep an updated starter version on my website and I’m often updating it. I have offered my latest starter version below.

My stapes list will be different from yours which will be different from your neighbor’s because we have different tastes. As you cook more and your confidence in cooking grows, you will understand why staples are the backbone to home cooking.

Never let the fact that you have no rice in the pantry prevent you from cooking at home. With several clients I have forced them (gently) to cook from only what is in the kitchen at the current time.. Each client was wavering on home cooking with one stating she was having cereal for dinner (nothing wrong with that) and the other out right revolting.

In each instance I asked them to not go to the store but to take an inventory of what is in the kitchen in that moment. I asked them to list what they had and in each case they came up with a dish. I made them promise they would cook that meal at a later time to which they complied.

This gentle push is an exercise in the avoidance of perfection paralysis which is something I talk about constantly in my counseling practice. This is such an important concept that I have devoted an entire chapter to it, and I may write an entire book on the subject as it pertains to cooking, health and nutrition.

Almost every client with whom I work deals “all or nothing thinking” and it prevents them from attaining their goals.

Cooking at home is a muscle and pantry, refrigerator and freezer staples are the gym equipment. Check out a starter staple list below and the evolving one on my website here:

https://wendywesleynutrition.com/articles/2019/12/21/kitchen-staples-a-starter-list-for-the-home-cook

LIST OF KITCHEN STAPLES
Each time you go to the store try to purchase one or two of these staple items to slowly build up your staples. To purchase them all at once may be cost-prohibitive.

Fresh Vegetables
Onions
Green/red/yellow peppers
Garlic
Tomatoes
Salad greens/spinach
Cucumbers
Potatoes/Carrots/Radishes and other roots

Fresh Fruits
Buy what’s in season and affordable.
Buy what you will eat.
Keep it out on the counter. Only fruits are allowed space on the countertop.
Try a new fruit. Experiment. Choose a variety of color.

Refrigerated
Milk: dairy or non-dairy or powdered
Eggs (most recipes call for large)
Butter
Plain Yogurt or Sour Cream
Shredded or Block Cheese (can be kept in the freezer for long term storage)

Pantry
Flour: all-purpose, whole wheat
Sugar: white, brown, confectioners (powdered)
Oats
Rice: long-grain white, brown, basmati or jasmine
Cornmeal – to line pans or for cornbread
Baking Powder and Baking Soda
Cornstarch - thickener
Cocoa Powder
Dry Beans: black, white, cannellini, navy, kidney, garbanzo
Pasta – flour or rice noodles (long shapes, small shapes, couscous)
Peanut Butter
Breadcrumbs
Nuts and seeds for snacking, baking and salads

Cooking
Oils: vegetable or canola, extra virgin olive oil, toasted sesame oil, non-stick spray
Vinegar: apple cider, red wine, rice
Soy Sauce
Ketchup
Worcestershire Sauce
Honey
Mustard: yellow, Dijon
Mayonnaise
Stocks/Broths

Herbs/spices
Salt – kosher or iodized
Whole Peppercorns (with grinder) or ground
Basil
Oregano
Thyme
Cumin
Crushed Red Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Smoked Paprika
Cinnamon
Curry Powder or Paste
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Vanilla Extract
Turmeric/Curry Powder

Frozen
Spinach
Broccoli Florets
Peas
Mixed vegetables (carrots, peas)
Cauliflower
Fruit: blueberries, strawberries, peaches
Meats and seafood

Canned
Beans (black, pinto, Cannelini, navy, red, garbanzo, filed peas, black-eyed peas, lentils, etc.)
Tomatoes (paste, diced, sauce/puréed, whole)
Tomato sauce (omit if on low sodium diet)
Pineapple
Coconut Milk (if curry is in your rotation)
Raisins

Hack # 4: Cheap Sharp Knives

Knives are the single most important piece of kitchen equipment along with your cutting board. Period.

That said, don’t let the price tag of expensive carbon-steel knives prevent you from doing some fast and expert prop work.

I’ve have many friends an clients tell me they don’t have sharp knives because they can’t afford them or don’t know where to buy them. So they rely on a small pairing knife or a serrated steak knife to do the work that is best done by an 8-in chef’s knife.

My favorite knife cost me $13.98 at a kitchen supply store formerly called Smart and Final and now call GFS or Gordon Food Service. Why is it my favorite? I’m sure. I like the weight, the way it feels in my hand or maybe it’s the memories attached to it. Point is, knives don’t have to be expensive but they have to be sharp.

Back in the 90s I worked on a tourist fishing boat out of Madeira Beach, Florida the summer I graduated from college. One of my jobs was to fillet the fish the customers caught into pieces that could be fried or baked.

The fish we typically caught were called “Key West Grunts” because the sound they emitted when squeezed. Filleting hundreds of them after a day of fishing would dull a knife rapidly and the captain and other mates taught me how to keep my knife sharp: the wet stone.

That summer I bought a filet knife and a stone from the bait shop and I still have them and use them today. The total purchase cost under $25 I think. I was on my way to culinary excellence!

I also keep a steel at my home work station and at the cooking school. I use the steel before I begin work often giving my knife a quick pass. The steel is to “hone” the blade or to force the tip back to center. It only takes a few passes on the steel to hone it and I highly recommend getting this practice into your rotation.

The difference between honing and sharpening is this: Sharpening removes material from the blade creating a new, sharp edge. I sue the stone for this and I perform is quarterly. Honing is maintaining an edge that is already sharp using a steel. I perform this every time I use my knife.

If you can afford expensive carbon-steel knives, I highly recommend that. The knives we are using in the cooking school are not expensive or high quality but they are sharp through the use of a stone and steel. Before each class I provide a knife honing and sharpening lesson.

Don’t skip this step. Sharp knives are the difference between misery and joy while cooking.

Hack # 5: Purge Tools, Gadgets, Pots and Pans

Here’s an exercise. Take the contents of an entire kitchen drawer and dump it in a box. Put that box far away from the kitchen in a closet or in the garage. Every time you need to an item from that drawer go find it in the box. If you used it, you are allowed to put in back in the drawer. After the course of a year, whatever is left in the box gets donated to the thrift store or thrown in the trash.

Do this with gadgets, large appliances (bread maker), small appliances (pasta maker), trinkets, towels, potholders, trivets, pots, pans, lids, sheets, bowls, plastic containers, etc. Challenge everything that is not nailed down.

A 2016 study out of Cornell University explored how a noisy, disruptive and disorganized environment influences how much women eat. Researchers found the combination of stress and a messy environment lead to more snacking and an increase in the number of calories consumed.

A cluttered kitchen can also be a hindrance to cooking. If the environment feels chaotic or stressful it can make you not even want to start.

I’ve cooked in some cluttered home kitchens and I found it difficult to get started. Designating the cutting board as “sacred space” is also a wise strategy. It’s a place to start as you move toward keeping your kitchen environment uncluttered and cooking more at home.

Most nutrient-dense meals start with chopping some kind of aromatics like onion, garlic and peppers. When the cutting board is out and ready for use, the entire project of cooking feels more manageable.

In the kitchen less is more when it comes to pots, pans and lids. Every cook needs a few essential pans for basic cooking. Like the trick of taking the gadgets to the garage, do the same with pots, pans and lids.

A few will come back into the house immediately like your 3-quart saucepan that boils pasta, your 1-quart rice pan, your 6-inch sauté pan for grilled cheese and a smaller non-stick pan for eggs.

Over the holidays, your turkey roasters, cookie sheets, loaf pans and muffin tins will make an appearance and they, of course, get to stay.

For me, here’s what did not make it back in the house:

- Multiple, duplicate 3 and 4-quart saucepans. Why do I have three?

- A large 30-inch braising pan with a large metal domed lid. It’s a beautiful pan but it hardly gets used because my 24-inch higher-sided sauté meets my needs every time for chicken cacciatore and oven-baked chicken thighs finished with a sauce or gravy on the cooktop.

- A non-stick sauce pan. Completely unnecessary

- A Zyliss mandolin. This a knuckle-shredding gadget that I received as a wedding present and I only used once out of total obligation as the gift giver was a guest for dinner. I lost skin and fingernails (maybe into the food, don’t tell anyone). The gadget went back into the back of the cupboard and eventually was sold at a yard sale. For the professional kitchen with large outputs and a need for uniform precision, a mandolin is an essential piece of equipment. For the home cook an 8-inch chef knife will do just fine.

- a 12-quart stock pan. It’s just too big for the scale of the home cook and I never used it because I don’t cook soup or beans for 20 people in my home. I’m not the Army.

- Duplicate sets of tongs, shredders, large serving spoons, multiple wooden spoons and spatulas.

In a effort to purge pots and pans (and free up storage) consider a pot rack. Mine is hung in the middle of the kitchen over a prep table but if you don’t have that kind of head-space in a kitchen, install one over a window, the stove or over the sink. I’ve even seen them in pantries and closets.

When thinking about what to cook, I look up at my pans and they talk to me. I know that sounds really woo-woo but it works. I am reminded of things I cooked in them and that inspires me to get started.

Also, imagine the joy of reaching up and grabbing a pan, placing it on the stove and turning on the heat in one movement. Imagine not squatting down to look in a dark cabinet for a saucepan.

Hack #6 – Spice Rack or Basket, Salt, Pepper, Oil and Tools Within Where You Cook

Hack #7 - Countertops are Precious Spaces
Only F and V displayed.

No paper, mail, magazines to distract your cooking.

Store seldom-used appliances away. Only workhorse appliances get to live on the counter.

The kitchen is for WORK and only items that WORK are allowed to stay.

Chapter 1 - Shame Spiral in the Kitchen

Shame Spiral Kitchen

I was on John’s Pass with my 8 year-old son when a group of young musicians set up shop on a street corner and started playing their folky, picker-style music.

The band, Bear Foot, hailed from the Pacific northwest and they were touring Florida in a van. Their catchiest tune called, “Good in the Kitchen,” was sung by the female lead in a sultry kind of beckoning style.

“And if you want to XXX. Good in the kitchen. Good in the kitchen. Good in the kitchen. Give you somethin’ to eat.” Went the lyrics.

This quick connection between a valuable woman and cooking ability was not lost of me or my 8-year old son.

“They’re pretty,” he said.

A few years later, my friend Mary who professionally sings, runs a business and writes books, expressed doubt over her worth because she thinks she is not “good in the kitchen.”

I started to see a connection between some women in my life who carried low confidence in the kitchen. I sensed a direct correlation between cooking ability and overall confidence.

Erroneously, this whole female/kitchen/cooking/value/quality is baked into our collective culture. 




I have been cooking, thinking about food and writing recipes since I was 8 years old and practicing nutrition professionally since 2016. In that time, I have seen several patterns emerge about food and human behavior. The longer I do this the easier it is to predict where my clients and patients have been, what got them there and what motivates them.

I suppose that is the way with any kind of practitioner be it law or dentistry or social work: patterns emerge that shape human behavior and the professional can design a program for the typical person in need.

Human behavior is fascinating. I have always been interested in how we change – or not. Motivations for change and the barriers for it are complicated. Since we don’t exist in a bubble our environment shapes us. The American food environment is difficult and people fall into routines and habits that the environment shapes.

I noticed in non-fiction books I have read that it’s the personal stories that I always gravitated to first. That’s why I have included so many. It is my hope that you see yourself these men and women and glean from their honesty.

I changed names, details, places, situations and other identifying details. Each story is gleaned from a basic framework of a person’s experience with food as it related to menopause. I think what you will find is the common thread of mindfulness.

We are each always floating among these three areas of change:

Unaware of the problem/issue
Contemplative where possible solutions are being considered
Mindfulness where change is actively afoot

There is no right or wrong way to enter or exit these phases. Each person is on their own path.



Once I spent enough time in practice I started to look past all the reductionist arguments like this. Day-to-day behavioral consistency and nutrition adherence is so much more important than the brand of fish oil someone supplements or the few ounces of meat.

Chapter: Building Resilience to Shame in the Kitchen

One of the things I like best about my older age and the enormous help my 12-step meetings have provided me is something I call “bounce-back time” or as Brene Brown calls it, “shame resilience.”

I agree with Brown when she says shame cannot be avoided. It’s part of the fabric of who I am. However, the amount of time I spend in a shame spiral is significantly less than it used to be.

Truth is, back in my drinking days I never crawled out of a shame spiral. I just bounced from one shame crisis after another drinking along the way to quell it.

Brown believes that shame resilience is a muscle that can be developed. That by recognizing shame when it appears, calling it by name and working through a process to understand it helps us move through it with authenticity and build stronger relationships.
So what does this have to do with cooking?

My ex-husband, Kevin, can fix or build anything. Anything. He loves going to home improvement stores. He says the store talks to him. He is inspired and motivated to dream of new projects.

Once we went to the Home Depot for a few nails. When we approached the “wall of drawers” that must number in the hundreds I watched him walk right up to a drawer, open it, take one nail out, put it back and go for another drawer. He did this five or six times until he found the exact nail for his project.

The entire process took three minutes.

I looked upon the wall of drawers with sheer panic. In fact, I fall into blackout, tunnel vision when I walk in the store and a terrible feeling of shame overwhelms me to the point that I will only visit the garden center. I won’t actually enter the store.

Where does my shame come from?

I realize now it comes from being a girl. From being raised in the 70s and 80s when girls were not taught how to use tools to fix or build anything. I feel shame for not understanding the basic tenants of home repair.

It also makes me vulnerable as a homeowner. That vulnerability drives fear which manifests in anger. That’s my shame spiral.

I have worked with countless clients who tell me they hate to cook. For some this is true. They simply don’t enjoy it. But for many it comes from a place of shame that began in childhood.

Stacy, 41, tells me her mom was in and out of the picture during her childhood and no one in the home ever cooked. She was raised on fast food and casseroles the neighbors brought over out of sympathy and concern. Now as an adult she deals with food addiction and doesn’t know how to cook for her own family. Cooking brings back a flood of bad memories and deep shame over the way she was raised.

Marley, 34, feels cooking creates panic and anxiety in her. When she starts to think about gathering ingredients and prepping she becomes overwhelmed. What will people think? They will laugh at my terrible skills. I won’t be regarded as a complete woman if I can’t cook. And if I can’t cook how will I ever take care of a family?

Mary, 56,



When I saw my ex choosing nails with joy and expertise, I realized that is how I feel in every grocery store I enter. I feel like a total master.

And I simultaneously realized that when many enter a grocery store they feel panic and shame just like when I enter the Home Depot.

This realization helped me understand the fear and loathing that many feel while grocery shopping.

The choices are numerous and expanding every year. The packaging claims often don’t match the food inside. The prices are high and getting more expensive. And there’s the fear that your will mess up the food that you bought resulting in more shame (and nothing good for dinner).

Intuition. Flow. Efficiency. Confidence. Joy. These are the words I hope to introduce to your cooking and help instill the belief that you are good (enough) in the kitchen.

hunch; pandemic shifted things; we turned to food as entertainment; our portions have been re-normalized; we became accustomed to or addicted to big industrial restaurant flavors; story of Panda Express; we think our cooking isn’t good enough; how could we ever compete when Panda Express fries the chicken twice and coats in five kinds of sugar?; or 12 grams HFCF in tuna fish?; food network started it; how could we ever compete with professional chefs and the magic of television? We said “if I can’t do it like the food network I just won’t at all”

Introduction - Hope is the New Recipe

Hope is the New Recipe

I watched and learned from several assured cooks while growing up in the 70s and 80s. My grandma Betty, Aunt Sandy and my mom, Peggy, made cooking look easy and practically effortless.

During summer visits to Texas, I listened to them talk about new recipes. Growing up I watched my mom pore over the latest magazines like Better Homes and Gardens and her favorite, Cooking Light.

Into her retirement my mom continued to buy cookbooks and watch her favorite chefs on PBS like Sara Moulton and our all-time favorite, Jaques Pepin.

I look back on her choice of favorite chefs and I see the common thread among them; humble confidence.

In neither Moulton or Pepin were there any showbiz antics, no “Bam!” or orange clogs. There was simple cooking and easy explanations of the how and the why.

“Here’s why we keep the heat low on the eggs.”

“Here’s why we add a touch of mustard to the vinaigrette.”

“This is why we pull the seeds from the middle of the cucumber.”

“Here is the benefit of clarified butter and how you can do it.”

Their instruction was peaceful. Their confidence put us at ease. They provided me with hope.

They made me think, “Maybe I could do that, too.”

My mom always deferred to her mom and sister as better cooks. Maybe they were.

There’s just something about watching my aunt Sandy make her Spanish rice that always fascinated me. How does she do that? Why does it always taste so good?

I used to ask her for her Spanish rice recipe and she always directed me to the method. “Oh, it’s just some of this, some of that, keep stirring, reduce the heat, put a lid on it and don’t burn it.”

So easy, so casual, so confident. Like she had done it the same way a thousand times. Her explanation always left me a bit lost.

While visiting my gramdma, Betty, on her farm in Texas I watched her cook everyday with ease.
The only time she consulted a recipe was for real scratch baking like her Angel Cake with four full sticks of butter. Baking is chemistry and good measurements are required. She knew that.

But that everyday savory cooking was all from the hip. It was intuitive method cooking from the gravies to the salads.

When she turned meat drippings into a velvety gravy with a ton of flavor in her cast iron pan, she was making one of the Mother Sauces. These sauces start as recipes in culinary school but morph into methods with endless variations by cooks around the world.

She, nor my Aunt Sandy, called it method cooking. That’s a term I came up with to describe this thing that eludes so many of my clients, patients and friends who want to cook more at home.

This is not a traditional, recipe-driven cookbook. Rather, it is a brief discussion of why so many people avoid cooking and how to fix that.

It is a discussion about shame and lack of knowledge.

It is a discussion about what we think we all should know but don’t.

Or should have been taught but weren’t.

It is a discussion about mom and dad and gramdma and grandpa and households and kitchens and pantries and dinner tables.

It is a discussion about what should have been but wasn’t.

It’s about misinformation, untrue beliefs, bad media, faulty science, marketing and the Food Network.

My hope is that you, the reader, will see yourself in some of the stories and give home cooking a shot or, if you’ve been previously disappointed, another shot.

Shame in the kitchen holds such power that I’ve written an entire book about it with the hope that the messages within will clear shame and doubt over your home cooking.

I’d love to see you cooking something very simple with confidence and pride and I’d like for you to share it with your friends and family or to just enjoy it alone.

The belief or mantra that “your home cooking is good enough” drives me every day to teach nutrition and cooking.  I believe, and science supports, that home cooking is healthier and cheaper than outsourcing food to restaurants, fast casual, fast food and grocery stores.

What holds us back is often not a lack of skills, the right equipment or “I just don’t know what to cook” challenges but it is the bigger problem of self-doubt and worse; shame.

Brene Brown, the brilliant psychologist and social worker from the University of Texas, has foisted “shame” into the conscious of the average American and given us permission to examine it in our everyday lives.

Here, I’d like to examine shame within the context of home cooking and unpack its origins and complexities.

Driven by celebrity TV chefs and domestic goddesses (more on them later) Americans have been inundated for decades on the “right” way to go about cooking: the right recipe, the right knives, the right cooktop, the right bowls, the right ingredients, the right presentation, the right people at your dinner party, the right you.

If we can remove shame from the home kitchen and determine that “what I cook is good enough” we will do a lot more of it with joy, ease and pleasure.

There will be mistakes. You will burn something. You will cut your finger. You will make something that is just “so-so.” I continue to over salt food and burn dinner and I have been ardently cooking for over 45 years.

Your cooking is never a reflection of your self-worth. It is simply a snapshot of time where you combined ingredients. That’s it.

I split this book into two parts. Part 1 is “The Why” which breaks down why some of us hesitate with cooking be it shame, lack of skills, fear of a bad outcome, lack of time or that we don’t enjoy cooking.

The other part is “The How.” How do I work faster in my kitchen? How do I stock my refrigerator and pantry? What is “Gather and Arrange” cooking?

I will also outline “Method Cooking” which is simply mastering a few big “methods” or techniques. It removes reliance of the precision and fastidiousness of recipes and learning a few big methods means 10 instant recipes.  they automatically 

Beyond the how and why, the purpose of this book is to make you a more intuitive and confident cook who moves efficiently and joyfully in the kitchen.

Science shows us that people who cook at home have lower BMIs, better health outcomes and more money in the bank. Every single client I have coached wanted at least one of these. And every single client or student consulted me with the hope of making it better.

Hope is the new recipe.