W3: I have a ginormous refrigerator and thanks to my dad, I know how to use it

My dad is kind of OCD, especially about our kitchen. As a kid, I never really appreciated it. I thought he was being mean when he yelled at me if I didn't clean up every single spot of whatever meal I'd left behind. Now that I'm older though, and I've used the kitchen for more than helping my mother stir the macaroni and cheese and/or staring in the oven as my birthday cake rose, I understand his clean freak persona.

Because I have a pretty fab kitchen.

I'm not an amazing cook. Never have been, probably never will be. I can do the babysitter basics (frozen pizzas, grilled cheeses, get-the-kids-to-do-what-you-want ice cream sundaes), the bake sale necessities (chocolate chip cookies, no-bake cookies, buckeyes, puppy chow), the college survival menu (makeshift salads, ramen noodles, adding lots of pepper and/or garlic salt to those "healthy" microwave meals) and I've tested on above-average levels when it comes to recipe comprehension.

I have my father to thank for acing Pots and Pans 101.  Photo from Only-cookware.com.

Anytime I find myself avoiding a culinary disaster, though, I have to thank my dad. After all, it's he who taught me about kitchen appreciation.

I'm not sure exactly when I figured out that the kitchen was my dad's second-favorite pride and joy of the house (the first being the brick fireplace he did himself). When I had sleepovers, my friends always commented on how freakin' huge our refrigerator was and how shiny and nice our oven was, and most of the time I was just like, "Yeah, okay, let's go watch movies and eat popcorn and talk about boys now please."

As I grew older and my family's schedules stopped lining up as nicely and sit down dinners became fewer and far between, I had to start using the stove more often. I slowly honed my skillet skillz (although the art of the fried egg is still difficult- I am guaranteed to spoil at least two for every one I plan to prepare myself) and learned the importance of basics like preheating the oven and making sure that when you're preheating said oven you don't accidentally hit the griddle knob and wind up burning the entire back side of the chopping board.

I guess I thought that the things my dad taught me about kitchen maintenance were universal. I thought everyone knew to make sure the oven fan was on when you were cooking, to coat the skillets with olive oil,  to let them sit removed from heat for a few minutes after using them but before cleaning them, or that wooden spoons were just generally better than silver ones. I thought everybody could keep time well enough to be cooking multiple dishes at once, all while starting the sink and filling it with dish soap.

But apparently not.

The first time I turned on the oven fan at my apartment, my roommate just stared at me and asked what I was doing.

"Turning on the oven fan...?" Insert implied "duh" here.

She kind of smirk/laughed and went, "Oh. I don't ever do that!"

I just stared at her and said, "Oh. I always do ..." But inside I was thinking of how hard I was going to smack her if she was heating up her rice and broccoli one day without turning the fan on and the smoke alarms went off or the place burned down or something.

Some of the stuff I learned from my dad was picky, I know. But turning the fan on as you're using the oven? Common sense, am I right?

Or maybe I'm turning out to be a little kitchen OCD, too. ---