Suviving Your Shared Kitchen

One thing that’s always a new experience for students when they come to Uni is sharing a kitchen! We are all so used to Mum, Dad or someone restocking the cupboards, packing the freezer or checking what’s needed for the next big shop at Tesco (other good supermarkets are available).

Then we get to University and oh you’ve got 5, 6 or even 8 people sharing a kitchen everyone’s buying different things and someone always “needs” the bigger shelve in the Freezer. All flats and people have different ways of handling it but here’s my top tips to surviving a kitchen share:

• This has to be the first point because it will annoy anyone and everyone…DON’T steal other people’s food! Someone may want that pizza at midnight that you just stole because it was convenient plus it’s not nice.
• When you move in let everyone pick a cupboard or two depends on numbers (in mine when two each and a work surface in between it) and stick to it. That also helped with keeping the kitchen clean as everyone kept their own work surface clean.
• As with the cupboards do the same with draws in the freezer or freezers if there’s two spread out.
• With fridge’s I’d say it’s a little different you can’t really have a shelf in a fridge because well food hygiene. Below I’ve inserted an image that shows how best to keep a fridge stocked. This is how I think having worked in the catering industry, so with regards to that just be honest and stick to your own food or ask if you want to borrow.

• Take it in turns to do the small jobs, the bins was a big one in my flat, nothing worse than people not chipping in to do their part it causes unnecessary tension. Plus it really helps you get used to doing domestic jobs because when you move into a house or live alone no one going to do it for you!
• Clean as you go, don’t leave pots plates and cooking stuff to pile up in the sink. If you have a meal…cook, eat and then clean. There is nothing worse than coming to Monday night realising you have kitchen inspection tomorrow and seeing Mt.Kilimanjaro of pots and pans in your sink.