![](\"https:\/\/www.simplyrecipes.com\/thmb\/o_HXQcayknebo_JYAqCazoY0RHU=\/8128x5419\/Simply-Recipes-Kitchen-Refresh-LEAD-1-1ed45eb057af40b4931241c1890b5fbc.jpg\")
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\u201cNew year, new you\u201d is a tired concept. Just typing those words makes me tired. The whole idea is why New Year\u2019s resolutions fail: we\u2019re all pretty much the same people we were at the end of last year. Big changes usually don\u2019t stick, and trying to make them stick is both frustrating and demoralizing.\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I pick a few small changes to focus on at the start of each year. I go for things that have a high reward-to-effort ratio, and because both my career and interests center around food and cooking, my kitchen is where a lot of these little tweaks take place.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The main little upgrade I tackle first thing in January is buying a new set of kitchen towels<\/strong>. By the end of the year, my towels are heavily stained and starting to get raggedy around the edges, and pulling clean, yet dirty-looking, towels out of the drawer quickly gets disheartening.\n<\/p>\n My preferred towels are the Utopia classic kitchen towels, available on Amazon for a mere $1.42 apiece. They come in a pack of 12, and while you may not think you need 12 kitchen towels, reader, you do. These towels have nearly 21,000 reviews and a four-and-a-half star rating, so it\u2019s clear that I\u2019m not the only person who adores them.\n<\/p>\n Simply Recipes \/ Amazon<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n Beyond their unbeatable price point, these towels are workhorses. They\u2019re not glamorous, but a simple blue stripe down the middle gives them a handsome, professional look that fits into any kitchen. They\u2019re very absorbent and super durable, and since they\u2019re so affordable, I don’t mind using them to clean up even the messiest spills.\n<\/p>\n Washing the towels is also a remarkably unfussy experience. You\u2019ll want to wash these separate from your other laundry. Use bleach (it somehow doesn\u2019t affect the blue stripe) and hot water, and dry them hot. Don\u2019t even think about using fabric softener or a dryer sheet\u2014both can inhibit the towels\u2019 absorptive qualities, and you don\u2019t want perfumes around your food anyway.\n<\/p>\n Washing the towels is also a remarkably unfussy experience. You\u2019ll want to wash these separate from your other laundry. Use bleach (it somehow doesn\u2019t affect the blue stripe) and hot water, and dry them hot. Don\u2019t even think about using fabric softener or a dryer sheet\u2014both can inhibit the towels\u2019 absorptive qualities, and you don\u2019t want perfumes around your food anyway.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rather than tossing last year\u2019s towels, I retire my stained, well-used ones to cleaning duty, where they\u2019ll tackle the gnarliest messes around the house or clean up larger spills when I don\u2019t want to stain my new kitchen towels. These are the most durable towels I\u2019ve ever used, so they last at least a couple of years, even with heavy use on the dirtiest jobs.\n<\/p>\n While I could go on listing the qualities and specs of these kitchen towels, perhaps my favorite thing about them isn\u2019t physical but psychological. The feeling of pulling a fresh, clean towel out of the drawer before I start cooking dinner or testing a recipe is a little like putting on a clean pair of socks or slipping into a bed made with just-washed sheets: a tiny dose of order in a chaotic world.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Kitchen #Upgrade #Food #Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cNew year, new you\u201d is a tired concept. Just typing those words makes me tired. The whole idea is why New Year\u2019s resolutions fail: we\u2019re all pretty much the same people we were at the end of last year. Big changes usually don\u2019t stick, and trying to make them stick is both frustrating and demoralizing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[216,168,215,98],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinner","tag-editor","tag-food","tag-kitchen","tag-upgrade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoz.xyz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} The Little Upgrade You\u2019ll Enjoy All Year Long <\/span> <\/h2>\n
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n What I Love About These Towels <\/span> <\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t Toss the Old Ones! <\/span> <\/h2>\n