Jun

giving the dishwasher a holiday

Summer. The old hall hot and stuffy, dust riding in on the late afternoon sunlight. The wooden trestles lined down the length of the room and on each a basin and a pile of dishes. And standing in front of each basin is a brown tunic clad girl.

Brown Owl (aptly named, her brown bodice stretched over ample bosom) marching up and down the ranks, inspecting the work, barking orders. She had narrowly escaped an encounter with a king brown on the way up Hangman’s Hill earlier that day and she had developed a new found sense of exuberance. Under her watchful eye, we learn the correct way to wash and wipe the dishes.

Do they still have Brownies? I think they’re part of the Girl Guides now. And I think the emphasis is more on community, leadership and outdoor activities and less on the finer arts of washing the dishes, folding hospital-corner bed sheets, sewing on buttons and pouring tea. Probably not a bad thing, I suspect.

There is an art to washing up, but in a world of dishwashers (of the electric kind), it’s a dying skill. I’m not going to tell you how you should wash up (and I try not to tell DH too often), instead I though I would share with you the way we were taught that afternoon at Brownie camp.

In a nutshell, the idea is to wash the cleaner items first, the dirtier items like pots and pans last. And to stack the larger items at the back of the dish rack, moving forward to the smaller items.

Simple. I can stop writing now.

But to elaborate, we were taught to wash up in this order:

Glasses
mugs
crockery
cutlery
pots and pans and everything else

Begin by scraping plates clean of food scraps. I like to give them a quick rinse with the aid of a brush, you can do this in a little water in the sink rather than running the tap to conserve water.

Use hot soapy water. The hotter the better because it helps dissolve grease, lift burnt on food and kill germs.

I also like to rinse the dishes afterwards. Again, if you have a two bowl sink, you can rinse them in a little water in the sink to save water. I read once that the average person consumers over a litre of detergent a year from un-rinsed dishes. Hmmm.

Place glasses and mugs upside down on a tea towel on the bench to dry if there is not enough room in the drainer. Stack the plates, largest at the back, smallest plates and bowls at the front. Large pots and colanders etc can be placed over the smaller items to drain. Leaving them to air dry is somewhat more hygienic (and less time consuming) than drying them with a tea towel, but if you prefer to hand dry, leave them to drain sufficiently so the towel doesn’t end up wringing wet after the first plate.

All done.

We tend to think of menial chores like washing up as something to rush through or to avoid altogether, in order to be doing something better. We consider chores like washing up a distraction from spending time with our family, rather than considering them an opportunity for quality moments.

Another memory from my childhood is at my grandmother’s house after dinner, the women would wash up and chat while the men would sit in the lounge and smoke (I know, it sounds like I grew up in the 1950’s, but anyway). It was a time I felt less like one of the children and more like one of the adults.

On the other hand, doing the dishes was a constant source of bickering between my brother and I, but what family moment would be complete without the odd butter knife being hurled at one and other?

The other thing about washing up in company is that people tend to talk more readily and more candidly when they don’t have to make eye contact and they have something to do with their hands.

I knew a man once who spent an hour washing up with his father after his daughter’s christening. He said it was the first time they talked man to man – the first time they really connected. The next day his father died. There probably would not have been the conversation without the chore.

So next time you’re faced with a pile of washing up, consider it as a boon rather than a bother, grab the guests, your partner or your kids and give the dishwasher a holiday.

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