"The kitchen's a mess"

You'd have to clear it first. There are pans in the sink from something, and the board's got crumbs on it, and the counter's got post and keys and a mug on it, and before any of the cooking could begin there'd be twenty minutes of putting things right. That's the belief, and it's the one that turns the plain plate back into the event, because it adds the clean-up to the front of the job.

There's an earlier book in this series about exactly this, The dishes take four minutes, and I won't repeat it. The short version is that the mess is smaller than it looks and takes less time to clear than you'd guess, and that a kitchen used every night stays clearer than a kitchen used never, because the pan gets rinsed while the pasta drains and the board gets wiped while the plate's on the table.

What I want to add is about the plain plate itself. It needs one pan, one board, one knife and a wooden spoon. It doesn't need the whole counter. It needs a foot of counter next to the hob and a pan that's clean, and if the only clean pan is the small one, the small one will do. The mess is a reason not to cook the event. It's not a reason not to cook the plain plate, because the plain plate doesn't go near most of it.

And the mess is partly the order's. Look at what's on the side. Some of it is the box from last night, and a plate that was used for one thing, and cutlery from a tray. A kitchen that cooks makes the mess of cooking and clears it as part of cooking, because the pan has to be washed for tomorrow. A kitchen that orders makes a different mess and never has a reason to clear it, because nothing in there is needed for tomorrow either. The clean kitchen you're waiting for isn't going to arrive on its own. It arrives on the second night of cooking, when you rinse the pan because you'll want it again.