Cleaning Up New York by Bob Rosenthal Page A

not. But, alas, the more cooking you do, the more cleaning there is to do. Cleaning maintains the outside of the body. There is a choice involved with cleaning that is not involved with cooking—that is, the choice whether to do it or not. I realize some people choose not to eat but I doubt they do very much cleaning either. You can eat a lot and still not clean much.
    Since we have established that you probably have eaten, let’s assume there are some dirty dishes left over from the meal. No one is pushing you to do the dishes (I hope) but sooner or later you’ll do them. Hot water is a key to easy dishwashing. Cooking grease and organic stains are soluble in water, heating the water just quickens things up. Soap also aids the process by making the food particles slippery so they don’t cling to each other or to the dish. Rinse and let dry.
    Clean the stove with cleansing powder and a pail of hot water. Wipe down the surface with the powder and a damp cloth or sponge. Wring the cloth and wipe the surface to rinse it. Use a dry cloth to make the thing gleam. Don’t forget those littlepans that pull out under the burners. The oven can be cleaned the same way. Leaving ammonia in a shallow pan inside the oven overnight will loosen baked hard grease and make oven cleaner unnecessary. I hate spray oven cleaners because one stray whiff can knock you out. I think the brush-on kind is better and safer providing rubber gloves are also in use. A stove looks lightweight when its knobs and handles shine; the body gleams, no longer earthbound.
    Ammonia and hot water will clean the outside of the refrigerator but it is not recommended for the inside. Baking soda in hot water is enough to clean the inside refrigerator walls and shelves. Wash with the baking soda solution as you would with soap and water. To speed up defrosting the freezer, I use pans of warm water. Often the water heats up the metal freezer walls just enough so that the ice can be lifted away in large sheets. Some people say it is not good to use hot water in this connection. I haven’t seen this process harm a freezer yet, but if one has any doubts about it, don’t try it. Be especially careful if you use any tool to loosen the ice. It is very easy to puncture the freezer wall and create a giant repair bill.
    Formica and similar countertops can be cleaned with cleansing powder. Hot water and ammonia will suffice most of the time. Clean the sink as discussed in the last chapter. Finish off by mopping the floor, slowly walking out of the kitchen backwards.

    Joanne’s floors need to be reclaimed from the depths of dirt and dullness. She is the closest friend to ever hire me. Joanne livesin the apartment above Shelley and me. I sit at my desk and look up at the ceiling, which is the floor I’ll soon be scrubbing. I roll a joint and leave for work.
    Joanne has black curly hair, an ingenious Jewish face, grace of movement; she is a dancer. She is the first welfare mother to employ me. We sit on the bed and smoke in the sunlight, talking about how to work through the myriad piles of Joanne’s clothes and papers. Joanne explains what a well-ordered system it is and that she knows where everything is. Unfortunately that is beside the point because it is the floor we are looking for. It is too lovely just to sit in the window light and smoke. The phone rings. Joanne leaves the room to answer the phone. I hear her say, “Oh Bob’s here. We’re going to wash the floors and he brought some grass!”
    Joanne walks back into the room and the phone rings again. Joanne turns, leaves. She says, “Hello [short pause]. This phone call is for Bob!” That’s odd, I muse as I get up on my feet. But, Joanne is still talking, “Oh, you mean why don’t
you
!” I sit back down. I ponder that the person called for me but will be satisfied to give me a message. Joanne returns and says that both calls were from her odd and