Dethroner Asks You: Dish Washing Strategies?
Published by Joel March 20th, 2007 in Ask Dethroner, Chores. Share ThisWe cook a lot. I work from home and don’t leave the house for days at a time, plus Susie makes dinner almost every evening. We’ve got a dishes problem—there are always some in the sink, and even when we dig into them it seems like it takes hours to clean up even a single meal’s worth of dishes, plus the assorted accumulation of glasses.
Obviously our goal would be to have all the dishes clean at any given point. What’s the best strategy you’ve found? The only thing I can think of is to wash up all the dishes every evening after we cook, but by then I’m usually so high.
So high? That’s your problem, there, haus; wait until the dishes are done, and then smoke up.
Other than that, buy easy to clean stuff, and get a dishwasher.
or just clean everything after you’re done with it. seems like a nuisance at the time ..but it should definitely reduce your end of the day workload.
This sounds like it is not really a problem. Or at least a problem you created by being lazy. I wash dishes as I use them. Bowl of Captain Crunch? Rinse the bowl out, dry it, and put it away. It adds a total of 17 seconds to my cereal eating. Browning some meat for dinner? After it’s added to the stir fry, pass a sponge over the skillet and be done with it. It makes life easier and after the first day it will become second nature.
Or just get paper plates and cups.
Here’s a thought, and one I wish we’d impliment around here (dirty dish central -I’ve seen how bad yours gets, Joel, and I can match you on most days!)…the k.i.s.s. method.
Take all of your plates, sucers, bowls, etc. Separate two sets of each from the rest. Use them and only them. Let them live in the dishrackn and only ever bust out the larger collection when company comes over. That way the cleaning chores will never get out of hand, and even when you leave ‘em dirty there’s only two sets of whatever to clean before you can eat on them again.
yeah. i pretty much do exactly what alex does. i only have two or three dishes i use, and i’m usually drinking diet coke from the can or a bottle of beer, so i don’t need glasses. plus, my dog is an excellent pre-cleaner, so there is really no scrubbing.
You just have to clean them directly after dinner before starting ANY other activitiy. Also, as a couple, the “whoever doesn’t cook is responsible for the cleanup” rule should help to add some pressure.
When you eventually get a dishwasher spend the extra hundred bucks and buy a Bosch. The cheap dishwashers are so noisy you have to leave the room. Bosch are built like tanks, well designed and silent.
Since I always am high too, I suggest doing the following:
I forget if you have a dishwasher or not, but if so, just throw your shit in there IMMEDIATELY when finished with your meal. Pre-rinse and shove it in there.
Otherwise, use paper plates and just wash glasses or use paper cups too. Talk about easy and it’s actually pretty goddamned cheap. A dollar store sells 100 paper plates for…well, a buck.
Even when I am feeling lazy late at night with a load of dishes, I always try and rinse and/or soak them so when I have time to really wash them it is a lot easier. Sauces that can be a pain if they dry up usually will rinse off in a few seconds.
I have a rule. Never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. It works.
Boo on the paper idea. Easy, sure, but there’s enough stuff in landfills already.
There is a good chance that it is taking you ‘hours’ to do dishes because you let them sit before cleaning them. I used to be terrible about this; scrubbing caked-on grease off a pan is a pain in the ass. Leave a dish that had pasta sauce in it over night and suddenly it’s like chiseling a sculpture, not wiping down a plate.
So I’ve taken to cleaning as I go; not only is it an easier mental task (one dish is one dish, not one dozen) to psych up for, but it tends to be easier. Wiping down that sauce pan is easy because the sauce is still moist, and rinses away. The grease will flow easily into the grease jar, and the rest will be whisked away. Whisked! If you have a partner you cook with, this is particularly easy; one cooks while the other cleans as you go.
Also, drink while you’re cleaning. Beer makes everything seem less onerous.
paper plates? environmentalism aside, nothing will cheapen you well-cooked meal more. might as well wash it down with natty light.
Combine dishwashing with showering. Install a disposal in the floor of the tub and Presto! You have eliminated at least some of the overlap in the activities.
I had this same problem until I installed a dishwasher. It’s a machine that cleans and sterilizes dishes for you.
Alternately you could get a high pressure nozzle for your hose and jet-spray your filthy dishes clean in your backyard.
Now we’re talking! I can’t install a dishwasher in this apartment, but the shower and power washing ideas are coming together!
Have children, sure it’ll take them a few years before they have the muscle tone, aptitude or inclination, the last one is really optional, but children are the ultimate multi-tool for menial housework, in this case dishwashing.
Results may vary, and yes, you have to feed them.
Rye - good suggestion on the kids. Only problem: they eat and therefore generate even MORE dishes (both eaten off of and cooked with). We have kids and are big fans of the stick-in-the-dishwasher-as-you-go method. Of course, there have been days when we fill and run the dishwasher THREE times a day… We also have our own appointed tasks: he doesnt like to wash the pots n pans, so he is responsible for the unloading/putting away clean dishes and I wash the big stuff.
Wear rubber gloves while you do them. Feels weird at first, but they actually spare your hands a lot of abuse from detergents and such. Plus, they help you grip slippery glass and ceramic better. And you’ll look like a girl while you do it, especailly if you get the pink ones. That’s fun!
the secret is not letting them get so high that they prevent you from doing them when you have time.
we call the state of no dirty dishes “zero dish” in our house. usually, this is only realized on sunday evenings. but we keep them at a manageable level during the week.
when i was a single guy with roommates, i held a strict wash-every-dish-immediately policy. but then, i had time on my hands. now my hands are busy with other things. ahem.
i only use one of each item and only one of each item.
The real secret to living the dishwasher-less life is to do them as you dirty them.
Let’s say it’s baked chicken (stoneware baking dish, cutting board, chef’s knife), pasta (pot, colander), and green beans (bowl, plate).
Preheat the oven and start filling a pot with hot water for the pasta, then fill your sink about an inch deep with sudsy water.
Break out the cutting board and knife - trim chicken, spice it, get it in the oven. Immediately wash the cutting board and knife in the sink. Drain the sink.
Cook your pasta and the beans, drain it, transfer to your dinner plates. Start running your hot water and put dish soap in the pan. Put your stopper in the sink. Put the colander in the pan, run the hot water through so it suds up through the colander. Scrub out the inside of the pasta pot, rinse that and the colander. Put the pot back on a cool burner so it doesn’t melt your counter. Your sink should still be filling with hot water.
Pull the chicken and beans, plate to dinner plates, toss the cooking dishes into the hot sudsy water.
Eat.
Five minutes after you’re done eating, wash your dinner plates and everything that’s been soaking in the water (which should be no more than a stoneware dish, dinner plates/silverware and whatever you cooked the beans in).
Ta-da. Done with everything ten minutes after you’re done eating. Don’t let that shit sit, it’ll cake on something fierce.
Joel- Look for portable dishwashers. They cost about $100 more than under-counter because of the shell built around them, but they’re the same thing. We found a bunch on craigslist for cheap.
You roll the sucker over to the kitchen sink, hook up the water supply to the faucet (it comes with an adapter to do this), hook the drain hose over the edge of the sink, and plug it into 110. That’s it. Now you’re washing like the people in the ‘burbs.
My girlfriend cooks, so I do the dishes. This works well for us, but in our small galley-like kitchen, it doesn’t allow for the “clean as you go” method.
I learned the finer points of washing huge piles of dishes as a dishwasher for a very large, very busy restaurant when I was 15. I use the same strategies today.
First, I approach the great mess with a simple, short term goal — I’m just going to organize everything so it’s all ready to clean *later* (yet I *always* end up going ahead and cleaning them right then). The organizing really helps the process, helps me start the job without feeling like I’m committing to the whole job.
First, I assign a dirty glass for all the silverware and utensils — fill it halfway with some hot soapy water, and then collect all the silverware, etc. They’ll be out of your way and practically cleaning themselves while you work through the rest of the pile.
Next, group everything else in compatible piles. Again, you’re just organizing everything, getting ready to wash them. Stack the plates, put the salad bowl on top of that, stack any serving bowls inside the salad bowl, etc. Nice, neat stacks is what you’re looking for, scraping away extra food into the trash as you go.
Once you’ve got everything all organized, the actual washing will go much more smoothly and will be more enjoyable. I find the whole experience very zen-like and relaxing, actually.
It also helps a *lot* if I can listen to an audiobook or a podcast like This American Life or something while I work.
“Also, as a couple, the “whoever doesn’t cook is responsible for the cleanup” rule should help to add some pressure.”
I like this idea. Problem solved!
I got a dishwasher in my kitchen Suck on that haters.
You can get high off of washing dishes!
doublejack’s method is nearly the same as mine. Looking at the dishes as a series of small, simple tasks makes even the worst pile managable. I also have a pretty small dishrack, and I don’t believe in drying dishes with a towel [I'm lazy and I have no issue with water spots on my dishes], so I’m forced to stop washing when the dishrack’s full. It means once or twice a day, I spend 15-20 minutes doing dishes & cleaning the kitchen, and it’s usually a pretty easy task. And meditative, yeah.
Any dishes left over in the morning are done while my coffee is brewing.
I wake up and go straight to my coffee maker. During the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to brew coffee, I do the dishes and stick them in the dishwasher.
A mindless job like doing the dishes is best done when my mind is not yet running on all cylinders. It also makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something early in the morning.
The trick is to get all the dishes done BEFORE the coffee is done.
No man should ever be without a dishwasher, it is absolutely essential.
Like motorhead, I do my dishes in the morning while my coffee is brewing, but that usually just means putting them in the dw or putting clean ones away.
When it comes to dishes, I’m a complete and utter bum.
I’ll fluctuate between using paper plates and letting dishes sit for days. I’m sure the girlfriend loves it.