Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for September 27, 2019

“Clean as you go” always makes sense. Less time spent after dinner when Janis could be thanking the chef. At least if you got the seasonings right.

When one needs a spatula, one needs it stat!

Fill the sink with hot soapy water, toss things in when you’re done with them.

I’m a clean-as-you-go cook; my husband is a make-a-big-mess-and-the-kitchen-fairies-will-clean-it-up cook.

Today’s strip in the original colors:

https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2017/10/16

I believe I figured out the mystery: Up to January 2018, the weekday strips were colored by a colorist hired by the syndicate, while the Sundays were colored by Jimmy Johnson himself. Starting on that month, he started coloring all strips. He explained this in great detail in his own webpage at the time:

https://arloandjanis.com/page/240

https://arloandjanis.com/page/239

My theory is that the re-runs from this week were re-colored by JJ. He probably hand-picked which strips to re-run (that’s common practice, AFAIK), but instead of just pointing the selected dates to the editors, he went ahead and colored the black-and-white originals from his own archive.

My firstborn has always been obsessively neat – and I promise she didn’t get it from my side of the family. On one occasion, I laid out everything I’d need for whatever I was making – probably a cake – and decided to make a quick side trip. When I came back, she’d put everything away! Not only was I not finished, I hadn’t even started.

As I have doubtless bored you with before, we have a large family. My wife ruled the kitchen, but she didn’t enjoy cooking. She didn’t like anything spicy, and salt was a spice. Needless to say we went through a lot of salt at the table. One by one, all the kids went off to college, where they couldn’t understand why their roommates would complain about the cafeteria food – they thought it was great. Freshman 15 was par for the course.

College reminded me of another anecdote of life: raising teenagers. It takes a special parenting skill, but try having up to six at the same time. I always said they’re teenagers, being aggravating is their job. My wife said college is nature’s way of protecting it’s young: you love them all but at 18 it’s time for them to go.

I tend to clean some as I go. I can’t stand greasy fingers and have a sink full of hot soapy water when I handle meat.

Cramps a guys culinary style if he has to keep things clean while creating!

When I cook, I clean what I’m through with as I go and put it in the dishrack.

My wife usually cooks and I clean. She does her thing, we eat, she does something fun and I clean up. It is so sad that cleaning up is my idea of fun! Anyway, we both like the arrangement. Thanksgiving clean-up often is 2-3 hours (two runs of the dishwasher in the process) but it is all the same to me.

She’s got itchy clean-up fingers.

Evn if a man is 100% reliable about cleaning up his own messes, a woman will still fuss about the one he’s still making.

Just reverse the roles and you have our kitchen.

My wife still does this.

This is what my sister does. If you put down a glass for a minute before refilling it, you come back to find it washed and put away.