Cookaholics Bulletin Board

We tend to use our kitchen knives as letter openers everyday while sorting through the mail. I suppose this is pretty bad for the blades but it is so hard to not do this.

Does anyone else do this or are there any humorous no-no's going on to share?

Lynn,

Sounds extremely unsanitary, too. Do you scrub them before using them in the kitchen? Don't you have some old dull kitchen knives you could use?

Hmmm, bad habits:

Bowl Underestimation: I chronically pick a bowl which is just a little too small for what I'm combining and have to get a larger bowl and wash two.

Apronesia: I usually remember to grab an apron right after the first grease stain.

Morning Brownies: I often just pile my breakfast dishes in the sink, even if the dishwasher is empty.

My sweetie has some bad kitchen habits too, but I'd be a Bad Husband to share them.

I'm sure I do, but I can't think of them right now. Your confession reminds me of my mom, though. She's a professional seamstress and whenever the mail comes, she grabs a seam ripper. Then she bitches about there never being any sharp seam rippers in the shop.

eeeeeeewwwww. Unsanitary. You are correct and I had not even thought of that, I was just thinking it was bad for the knife. Oh dear, I'll get a mock knife to use for the letter opener. I have a few old crappy ones that are begging to get used.

Thanks for that.

I'm a 61 year old male; I don't have ANY bad habits

And I'm a 70 year old female. If I have any, I've long forgotten them!
fitzie

Coughed my coffee

Almost 70 and agree.....
ilene

Working in a professional kitchen, you either horribly reinforce your bad habits, or you break yourself of them. (It's too hectic in there to not make every move count.) I've luckily fallen into the latter camp. The biggest bad habit I've broken is anticipating all of the bowls, utensils and ingredients I'll need for any given task. (Crossing the kitchen 40 times/day because you didn't anticipate needing the bowl, the whisk, the lemon juice, etc. adds up to a lot of wasted time.) I now (mentally) talk to myself lining up everything I need (or need to do) next in order to be efficient. It works for me, but I think sometimes I say these things out loud because my fellow chefs will occasionally ask me, "what did you say?"

Amy

Priceless.

Can I add a husband-bad-habit: He continues to put a knife that has touched meat into the mayo jar when making sandwiches. Grrrr.

I also will brush my teeth at the kitchen sink. This drives some people NUTS but it does not phase me.

It bugs me to see restaurant people with bandaids, I know it's probably better than an open cut, but you can't wash a bandaid between handlings of different things.