5 Quick Tips for a Clean Kitchen

Ever go into a nice restaurant and wonder how they manage to get everything so clean and sparkly? (Unless something is terribly wrong) the floor shines, the silver gleams, and all is right with the world for that brief, bright hour or so.

Good restaurants understand that a feeling of clean helps create a sense of calm, confidence and happiness, which keeps customers coming back again and again (assuming the food is good)!

But how do busy restaurants manage to present so well, hour after hour, day after day? Below are some common cleaning woes and how-tos for handling them:

1. Keep flour from flying.

   A messy kitchen may be the sign of a good cook, but who wants to spend more time cleaning than they have to? Prevent flour, cocoa and other dry ingredients from flying out of your mixing bowl by draping a kitchen towel over it before turning on the mixer.

2. Remove tarnish from silver.

   This is a super-easy idea and it works for jewelry, too. Use an aluminum pie plate or line a medium-sized bowl with some aluminum foil. Fill it with hot water and mix in a tablespoon of powdered laundry detergent. Soak your silver for one minute and then rinse with clean water. Voila! A reaction between the silver and the aluminum gently removes the tarnish without scratching the silver. Let it air-dry then polish with a microfiber cloth.

3. Polish glasses and silverware to a high shine.

   To remove water marks and spots from silverware, first soak it in hot water. Let it air dry, and before setting your table, polish silverware and glassware with a high-quality microfiber cloth to ensure everything is at its gleaming sparkliest.

Tip: Microfiber is great for cleaning windows and dusting blinds, too. It grabs, traps and removes the tiniest particles of dust and dirt—without the need for harmful cleaning chemicals!

4. Soak up oil spills with salt.

   Have you ever accidentally dropped an egg on the floor? Or a bottle of cooking oil? Or a pan with grease in it? Then you know how difficult it can be to clean up oily, slippery messes like these. Next time, grab your salt shaker and sprinkle liberally over the mess. Salt gives slippery or oily spills something to stick to, making them easier to wipe up. Then just wet mop any residual oil with a high-quality microfiber mop pad and water.

5. Use the figure-8 mopping method.

   When it’s time to mop, try the figure-eight method with your microfiber mop system. Says Executive Sous Chef Stephen Lyons, The Inn at Little Washington, (Washington, VA), “I move the mop in a figure-eight motion as I sweep myself into an exit in order to get every corner.”

Tip: Make your mop do double duty by cleaning the baseboards at the same time. Place your mop pad slightly longer on one end of the base to allow it to go up and over the baseboards as you mop.