I like to cook. I like to eat. I like to write about cooking and eating with the hope someone will read it.
I like clean. I really like clean. I’m the person nobody wants to cook with because I will wash the spoon that you were stirring sauce with the second you turn your back on me. I (honestly) sanitize my kitchen counters at least once a day but realistically 2 to 3 times a day. DH says I’m crazy. I say — perhaps, but I’m the crazy person you know who doesn’t die of food poisoning.
I have two kinds of anti-bacterial soap in the kitchen AND hand sanitizer. I wash my hands when I start cooking and (honestly) after every time I touch raw meat. This typically amounts to 4 – 5 hand washings during meal prep.
Sometimes I wake up at night thinking about Gordon Ramsay yelling “Dirty Plate! Dirty Plate” or worse, the hellish things he finds in a restaurant kitchen, rotten food, unclean food prep surfaces, general grossness.
Crazy?? You be the judge. But if you are invited to my house for dinner I can’t promise you will like everything you are served, but I can promise that there will be no cross contamination between raw meat and other foods. I am certain that you will not get sick because I didn’t have a clean kitchen routine.
While I will admit to being a little nuts, today, I must blog about sanitation stupidity.
I’m unclear as to when as a society we gained a love affair with food prep professionals wearing latex gloves. To be certain, it beats the days of Upton Sinclair and “into the hopper” (for those of you who do not know what I’m talking about, Google it, you’ll never eat sausage again).
I’ve worked in restaurants ranging from humble drive-through to prestigious four star. I would never pretend that eating out is cleaner than your own kitchen (or even as clean). Therefore, I heartily applaud efforts to make eating out cleaner, whether you have dinner from Taco Bell, or the highest end of fine dining establishments. But I’m still fuzzy about how it came to pass that latex gloves are considered cleaner than bare skin.
To be certain, if you have a cut you should have the proper protection. But if you have basic concern for cleanliness, your hands are as clean or cleaner than the gloves. How many times have you gone to a sandwich shop and had the person take your money while wearing gloves. If they would not wash their hands between touching money and food, what makes anyone think they would change their gloves?
The gloves are only as clean as the last thing that the person wearing them touched.
You may ask yourself, Why is Whineaux ranting about this?
Today DH drove me to Target. We needed an orange, milk and a prescription. $100 later (another rant for another time) we were in the car on the way home. @icejunkies (that’s his Twitter if you want to follow the man who lives with the certified whacko) and I live near Disney World. Going to the market means we have to drive along the horrible tourist corridor known by locals as “192″. It’s a mix of cheap souvenir shops, crappy hotels and even crappier eating establishments.
On the way home from Target we were passing a “Las Vegas Style” buffet (for the record that’s their phrase not mine) which recently began serving crab legs. To advertise this they were placing signs out by the street. You know the kind; they are typically seen during political campaigns and are one color on a metal stick. The person placing these signs obviously works in the kitchen judging by the all black clothing, apron and hair net. In addition, he was wearing; yes you guessed, latex gloves!
If he didn’t bother to remove them to place the signs then I’m pretty confident he didn’t change them when he went back in the kitchen.
Why can’t he just wash his hands?
So next time you are at the sandwich counter ask yourself this, what else did they do wearing those gloves? Just go ahead, ask them to change their gloves before making your food. After all, would you let your dentist put his hands in your mouth wearing soiled gloves?
I am so with you on the hand-washing & gloves. I have watched as a deli clerk emptied the garbage & then went to cut my meat, wearing the trash gloves! I guess they think the gloves are there to protect their hands! I also wash my hands every time I touch meat or move to a new food, cleaning counter between! @goaliemom31
I am so with you on this one. I had to quit working in a commercial kitchens because I could stand lack of clean in the restaurant. Yuck!
Amy
I had no idea I was going to hit a nerve! DH says I’m nuts, but the things I see GROSS.