Cleanup

Special dinner for My Valentine.  Buttermilk biscuits with butter.  Bean soup from a Manischewitz mix. Cucumbers with yogurt-dill dressing.  Seared tuna steaks with the interior still pink.  Maple glazed carrots.  Tricolor quinoa.  Oatmeal cookies in the style of Frog/Commissary z"l.  Italian pinot grigio.  Worth the planning and effort.  

And I did very well cleaning up as the preparation proceeded.  Measuring cups, mixing bowls, cutting boards all washed by serving time.  Beaters cleaned and put away right after making cookie batter.  Rolling pin washed and dried.  The baking sheet, used for both cookies and biscuits needed some soaking from both ends, but it got washed and placed in the dish rack to dry overnight.

Despite attention to keeping up, substantial cleanup awaits the day after.  The most difficult involves the leftover soup.  It was harvested by my wife, but in addition to the pot, I have two plastic containers not quite large enough to contain the remaining liquid and beans.  Searing tuna leaves a crusted pan whose restoration takes effort.  Small saucepans for quinoa and carrots usually clean easily but take up space in the dish rack while other washing items continue to soak.  Bowls still have biscuits and cookies.  Those get washed later.  We have wine glasses, soup bowls, plates and platters.  And some coffee cups, as I helped myself to periodic refreshments as I worked preparing the dinner.

It all gets washed, something that I find more relaxing than challenging.