英语博客:Tour of Homes 8, cleaning the kitchen（在线收听）

Beginners.

The unfortunate thing about cooking is the cleaning up that you need to do afterwards. Oh drudgery! The endless pile of cups, plates, cutlery, and pots and pans can spoil an otherwise fun evening. I am used to cleaning the kitchen. I do it every day, sometimes without even realising. My goal is to get the dishes done as soon as possible. Even my mother has commented on the speed with which I unload and load the dishwasher, clean the countertops and put clean crockery away. Well, if I don't like doing it, then why do it slowly? Get it done as soon as possible, so I can move on to doing something more interesting. I know that I can't complain; I do have an automatic dish washer, so the job isn't really that difficult. I remember when I was a little girl and nobody really had dishwashers. They were extremely rare. My mother would wash everything by hand in very hot soapy water. Then, she would rinse every item in the sink off in very hot, clean water. The pots and pans and everything else would sit on the draining board for a while. A short while later, when the water had run off, we would each take a kitchen towel and help her dry and put it all away. It seemed to take forever. I think, though, that back then, we had less to do; we didn't seem so busy. I can't imagine life without my automatic dishwasher.

Grammar notes.

 Related vocabulary: drudgery, crockery, cutlery, to rinse, the draining board.

Exs:

The class I just had was pure drudgery. It was slow and boring.

I need crockery. I hardly have any cups, plates, bowls, or other dishes.

Our silver cutlery needs to be polished with a special liquid.

After lathering up the car, the couple rinsed it off thoroughly with the hose.

My draining board is too small to hold all of the pots and pans; water runs over the edge onto the countertop.

Advanced.

 Okay, roll up your sleeves and get on with it. Don't just stand there contemplating. It is a necessary evil, a daily duty, a pain in the rear. To do this successfully, make sure that you don't have any distractions; you need to focus. This is how I clean the kitchen. First of all, I scan the room to see if there is anything that needs to be thrown away. Then, I put away any clean cutlery or crockery that hasn't been used. I move all of the items that need to be washed close to the sink. Plates that still have food on them are scraped off over the pedal bin, (I have a really cool one that is extra big, and can be kept open if you are using it alot). I try to stack plates and bowls according to size so everything looks organised, even if it is still unwashed. I fill up the sink with these stacked, dirty items, making sure to put the cutlery in one pile, and anything delicate up on the countertop by itself. Wine glasses can easily break in the sink with the heavier items. I turn on the tap, switch the fosset head to spray rather than stream, and I rinse each item quickly before I load up the dishwasher. Once I reach this stage, it all goes very quickly. I try to arrange everything in the dishwasher to get maximum exposure to soapy water and rinsing. Nobody likes to open a dishwasher and find that it hasn't done its job. Then, I pour the soap powder into the little, plastic compartment, close the door, push a few buttons, and viola!, my favorite maid leaps into action. After that, I simply need to wipe down the countertops, and sweep the floor, and then pat myself on the back for a job well done.

Grammar notes.

 Verbs: to contemplate, to scan, to scrape, to switch, to wipe.

Exs:

It was my day off, so I spent some time contemplating the flowers.

The robot scanned the building and detected an unexploded bomb in the corner of the lobby.

The girl fell down in the playground and scraped her knee.

I switched from regular coffee to decaf, but I was tired all the time, so I switched back.

She wiped the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief. His train had already left; she wouldn't see him for another month.