Everybody’s Doin’ It
Irving Berlin was focused on dancing when he wrote his ragtime piece Everybody’s Doin’ It Now in 1911. However, the title pretty much sums up a current obsession – and it’s not dance.
De-cluttering. Downsizing. Organizing. Tidying-up. Death-cleaning (yes, the Swedes may have a dark side to them). Everyone we know seems to be doing it. When my CC/GPB friends met last September and decided what we hoped to accomplish during the next year, getting rid of “stuff,” seemed to be #1 on many of our lists.
When I asked our Brooklyn Hannah where she kept their new food processor, she responded without hesitation, ” Oh, I’m trying to de-clutter so I keep it put away.” Yikes. Hannah will have nightmares when she sees our kitchen clutter when she and our son, Travis, and her mom visit here in April.
A little background info in case you haven’t kept up: Marie Kondo, the 34-year-old wunderkind from Japan, wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up when she was about 27. Her method is entitled KonMari and there’s more about it online than you would ever need or want to know. Margareta Magnusson from Sweden followed up in 2017 with her own Scandinavian-style approach in “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.”
She’s WAY closer to my age than Marie Kondo, so I was amused that amidst her recommendations for städning – or cleaning – she suggests that you should be sure to “save your favorite dildo!” Ha!
To honor these two really note-worthy women, we’re providing you with two great recipes – one Japanese and one Swedish. How cool can we be? But first we have to “KonMari” our frying pan situation. Which can stay; which should go?
That big Lodge carbon steel pan (2nd from left) is great for pancakes. But we’re fortunate and have a griddle on our Wolf range, so that’s where we normally fry our pancakes. And, interestingly enough, that’s about all we do with the griddle part of the stove. Should we KonMari it?
Enjoy the pancake recipes we’re offering up. They’re different and they’re delicious. And enjoy Andy’s Corner – where some cleaning up is not going to happen. 🙂
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