Voyage to the Bottom of the Sink

 (Lessons in dish washing)

John Gajdos

 

   No one likes doing the dishes. Among household chores, washing dishes is one of the most discouraging. Approaching a sink loaded down with a pile of dirty dishes, utensils, cups, pots and pans, soaking in a stinky cold mud of greasy water with floating globs of food and flies buzzing about can be very intimidating. Sounds scary, but all too often, this can be the case, especially if you have other household members that enjoy eating, but don't care so much for cleaning up.

   As strange as it may sound, I don’t mind doing dishes anymore because I have approached the situation from the direction of it being a challenge rather than a problem. These two words actually describe the same thing, but one word is negative and the other is positive. There is a solution to both, but to think of it as a challenge sets your mind immediately to the mode of finding the solution rather than intimidating you into having a stiff drink. 

   There is a series of steps you can follow to tackle this situation and each step will make the task easier. All of these guidelines working together will save time, money, water, soap and maybe even your sanity. It has been said that bad habits are easy to form and hard to live with. On the other hand, good habits are hard to form and easy to live with. Once a good habit is formed, the benefits are so great, the habit will be second nature. This will, however, require the effort of everyone in the house so this is also an exercise in discipline and cooperation. Learning cooperation is a valuable lesson, and one lesson learned can lead to another.

   If you will replace your old habits with these methods, I guarantee that you will spend less time at the sink and maybe, you might even grow to not mind doing the dishes at all.

  

 

Organization

 

   The first step to tackling the task of washing dishes is to make sure everything stays in order. Order is the great streamliner. We comb our hair, we sort our clothes, we write lists before we go shopping, we do so many things to keep stuff sorted out, so why not the dishes?

   Start with a clean sink. I have a two-bay sink and that actually helps a lot. I keep dishes and bowls on one side and cups, pots, pans and other items on the other side. I am right handed, so I wash in the left sink and have my draining rack to the left of that. The right hand scrubs and the left hand holds the dish, so this is most efficient. After the sink is clean, the dishes must be made ready to go in. Each person in the house is responsible for preparing the dishes they used. All food debris needs to be rinsed or scraped off the dishes before they can be stacked neatly in the sink. If you have leftovers that you can’t save, don’t throw them in the trash. Believe it or not, the toilet is your best friend when it comes to getting rid of this stuff. It is better than attracting flies to your garbage can, and after all, rotting food is what makes garbage stink so badly. Just make sure everything will go down. No bones about it.

   Dishes go on the bottom of the stack and bowls go on top of them arranged from large to small. Cups, pots and pans go in the other sink. Likewise, these should be pre-rinsed, or even better, washed as soon as they are off the stove. We will touch on this later. Silverware is rinsed and placed in another container, all facing the same direction, I like to use a bread pan and I keep it off to the side out of the sink.

    Right away, this organized state will make handling the situation much easier. It is like anything in life. When things are in order, they can be taken care of more easily. If you want to see for yourself just how much difference this makes, find a sink with all the dishes tossed in all over the place and sort it out. You will see an overflowing sink suddenly turned into a job that is only half of what it seemed to be.

 

Getting ready to wash

 

   OK, It’s time to get started. We have a clean sink and the dishes are pre-rinsed and organized. You will also need a clean sponge, or a sponge that has been kept clean. We will talk about this again later also. Some people use a dish rag, but they are clumsy and hard to control. I guess it’s up to you which you prefer. Naturally, we will also need dish soap. I like to buy the great big bottles to save money. Sometimes you can find a 50 oz. bottle of soap for as little as $2. This can save you money, but only if you don’t use the bottle to dispense the soap. The bottle is heavy. You have to grip it extra hard just to pick it up, and by the time you turn it over to squirt out some soap, you grip it even harder just to keep from dropping it. You will end up using too much soap and make useless the reason you bought the economy size in the first place. Get a small bottle of soap and when it runs out, refill it from the big bottle.

   Take the dishes out of the sink and put them to the side for a moment. Put the drain plug in the sink and run a little water, then shut it off and watch to see that the water is not leaking. Maybe it’s just my sink, but I have noticed that the plug does not fit properly all the time and I have lost good hot water from a leaky drain plug before. Once you know it’s stopped up good, you can let that water out and replace the plug the same way you just removed it. Get the water running hot. Hot water is most important. First of all, hot water kills germs. A temperature of I60 degrees is the sanitizing temperature. If you want to add something to the water to kill germs, a tiny bit of bleach (50 parts per million) works, but bleach will also start forming a residue if items are left in the water for too long. Iodine is a good alternative and you can get it in tablet form made just for washing dishes. The other thing about hot water is that it will melt oils. Also, the molecules are moving around in it very fast. This helps the water soak into dried food residue more quickly. If for some reason, you will have to interrupt your dish-washing for too long, drain the water out. It’s not good to let dishes sit in cold water.

   Start with the flat dishes. Only put in enough water to submerge the bottom few dishes. Do not put soap in the water. That is a waste of soap. You do not need a lot of suds in the water. Suds to not clean dishes in spite of what the people on T.V. tell you (Suds are actually dangerous). The water cleans the dishes. The soap is there to break the surface tension of the water and to emulsify the oils. Put the soap where it will be best used. Wet the sponge and apply a dot of soap about the size of a nickel to the sponge. Now pick up the first dish, and with only a little hot water on it, scrub the dish with the sponge. I like a sponge with a scrubbing pad attached. I always use the scrubbing pad side on the dishes. Once you have scrubbed the plate, return it to the bottom of the stack in the sink. Now, I am sure that someone out there is saying “Well, that’s just crazy” Just keep up with me for a moment. The dish just went back in the water where it will remain until the current stack is ready to rinse. Repeat the process with each dish, adding soap to the sponge only if needed, until the first dish you washed is back on top. Now we will rinse the stack. Squeeze out the sponge and place on the edge of the sink out of the water. This is one way to keep the sponge clean. Turn on the water over the sink you are washing in with enough pressure to rinse the dish but not so much that you get yourself all splashed in the process. Rinse each dish thoroughly and place it in the rack while starting the rinse on the next dish. The moment the last one is done, turn the water off. So what just happened? We kept the freshly scrubbed dishes wet so they would rinse easily while we concentrated on the scrubbing process only, and this actually began the rinse process. Next, we rinsed the dishes in one continuous motion that saved a lot of water. Also, the soap that was on the dishes is now in the wash water, which at this point is deep enough to introduce the bowls. No water has gone down the drain yet, and there is still plenty of room in the sink for more water.

  Now do the bowls and other deep dishes in the same manner, washing them, returning them to the dish water and then rinsing them all at the same time.

   Now it’s time to start pre-soaking the silverware and other utensils. Fill the container you are holding them in with some of the wash water from the sink and leave them alone for awhile. 

   Cups are next. If you have glass cups, just do a few at a time. They are too easy to brake if there are too many of them in the sink at once. Fortunately, I have already broken almost all the glass cups in the kitchen and replaced them with plastic. Clumsy people should never own glass.

   Silverware is next. Take the container with the silverware and dishwater, and put it in the sink on the right side. If you are left handed, put it on the left side. I wash a few at a time. I grab a handful and as I wash each one, I drop it into the bottom of the sink away from the container. After they are all done, I grab a few at a time and rinse them and put them in the draining rack with the mouth parts up. This is how it is done at restaurants and for good reason. The water drains away from the mouth part of the utensil and secondly, have you ever looked down at what can accumulate in the bottom of a silverware draining rack? Yuck!!

   At this point, your sink is where most people start from. The difference is that all the soap and rinse water you used has not gone down the drain yet. Most people would have used too much soap in the water to begin with, and wasted lots of hot water rinsing dishes in the other sink. Congratulations, you have just saved some money. 

 

Sponge care

 

  Before we get to the pots and pans, let’s talk about sponge care. You should treat your sponge like you treat your children. Sponges soak in whatever they are surrounded with. If they are in cold greasy water, they will drink that muck in and become sticky and squirty. They will leave nasty residue on your hands if you attempt to use them. They will wind up in the trash long before their potential usefulness is realized. A well taken care of sponge can later graduate to harder jobs like the bathroom or the floor. To get the longest life out of your sponge, only requires that you keep it out of harm’s way. Never use them on really greasy pots and pans. Pre-wash pans with your hand first, then finish with the sponge. When you are done with it, squeeze out the excess water and keep it out of the sink. Don’t rinse the soap out of it. This will help it stay clean too. By the time I throw out a sponge, the scrubby pad is no longer usable, but the sponge is never sticky.

   OK, let’s get the pots and pans done. I use the other sink, the one I have not been using all this time, to do the pots and pans. Only the pots and pans that could not be cleaned immediately after use should be left over. If all the food has been removed from the pan after cooking, it should instantly hit the sink while it is hot and the food is fresh. It will clean up in no time and be out of the way. This is also the rule for things like graters ad strainers. If you grate a potato or strain spaghetti, these are both starches and should never get the chance to dry. Wash and rinse them immediately. Get them done and out of the way.

 

About those greasy pans

 

   Pans with a lot of grease need special care. First of all, don’t send the grease down the drain without emulsifying it first. If you think that hot water will melt the grease and send it to the sewer system, you are wrong. Eventually, that melted grease is going to hit cold pipe and stick to it. , Consequently, the build-up will clog your pipes.

   If you have a pan that has burnt on food, you can deglaze the pan by putting some water in it and putting it on the stove. Just remember that it is hot when you go to wash it. I grab the sponge with a pair of tongs to take advantage of the really hot water in the pan.

   For a greasy pan, put a little very hot water in it along with a fair amount of soap. Wash it with your hand till the soap and oils combine into a non-sticky creamy liquid. Now it is safe to go down the drain. Rinse all of the combined oil and soap liquid down the drain. Now finish washing the pan in the regular wash water with the scrubby pad. Your sponge will thank you for pre-washing the pans first.

 

Knives

 

   Sharp knives must be taken care of separately. They should never even be put in the sink. You can cut yourself badly from reaching in a sink with a sharp hidden blade waiting for an unsuspecting finger to slide by. I used to work at a convention hotel and this very thing happened to me. Everyone there would just throw their cooking utensils into the sink. As I was washing up, I reached in to a suds covered sink and put a nice deep gash into one of my fingers from a French knife. (This is why suds are dangerous) Scrub each knife separately, rinse it off and place it somewhere safe and visible to drain.

 

Drying the dishes

  

   Do not use a towel to dry the dishes. Towels can spread germs. The best way to dry them is to let them air dry. This is how it is done in the restaurants and they must follow strict guidelines in sanitation. If your draining rack fills up, take a moment wipe down the counters, table top and stove or anything else that may need to be taken care of. It’s good to step back sometimes to clear your mind and rethink a situation. After all, conditions may change while you are in the process of accomplishing a task. It is like a game of chess. Well…maybe not chess. You know what I mean. Remember that if the dishes take too long to dry, the water in the sink will go cold. Let some out and put in more hot water.

 

Overview

 

   There are two kinds of change. (Three if you count what’s in your pocket) Anyway, there is change that happens by itself. The unavoidable change that comes is almost never good and usually ends up biting you where the door hits. The other kind of change is the kind you affect. This kind of change has a good chance of being beneficial because in order to affect it, you have to make plans to do so, and more than likely, you will be making plans to improve your condition. The problem is that many people are afraid of change. They get comfortable with the way things are and don’t want their current situation to change so they can continue to do nothing about it. This makes them victim of the unplanned unavoidable change that happens anyway, and being this is the only kind of change they see in their lives, it leads them to believe that change is bad. It is only when we begin to effect changes in our situation that we lose our fear of change. The more frequently we affect change, the more we learn to invite change in our lives. So, remember that when the dishwater of your motivation cools down, don’t hesitate to change the water and get it hot again. Flush out the food particles that get in your way. Get a good grip on the sponge of your ambition and don’t let it stagnate. Avoid the suds that would blind you and make you vulnerable to the cutlery that could detain you from your goal. Emulsify the grease that would make you slip up and clog the pipes of your dreams. And remember, that just like your sponge, when taken care of properly, can graduate to cleaning the toilet, you can graduate from the lessons you learned at the sink and move on to other situations in your life. The limit is only your imagination. You are free to chase your dreams to the ends of the earth and acquire them with the practice of organization, determination and a clear mind, and never forget that when you are all done, put the dishes away.