I AM Dishwasher...an epic

I remember asking my sister, as a teenager, if we could purchase a dishwasher. She kindly turned to me and said, "Oh Pop (family nickname...don't use it), we have one...you!". Not until my adulthood was I "blessed" with this wonderful box that magically made the dishes clean and steamy. Love that part. The steamy part.

After returning home for graduate school, we FINALLY acquired a dishwasher and the problems that come with it: do we rinse all the dishes? When do you choose to wash instead of load? HOW do you load the dishes?

We've had clean dirty dishes. You know, the clean ones with dried up chicken or pesto spots. We've also played the guessing game aptly titled, "Are those clean?" very frequently.

One day, while waiting for my boyfriend to finish his music lessons, I stumbled across a great article in Rachel Ray's magazine about dishwasher ettiqute and here's what she had to say. Oh yes, I added a few amendments to her list...

1. Always rinse/pre-wash first! Especially if there is sauce, grease, old food, sticky stuff, or anything of the like on the dishes. Nothing is worse than using the dishwasher and the dishes are STILL dirty!
2. Load silverware (in the basket) at random to prevent nesting.
3. Put knives in the washer blades up.  This gets them cleaner. Keep sharp knives out of the dishwasher, it makes them grow dull faster.
4. Pots and pans with dried up mess should be put on the bottom rack, face down. This is where they can get the most intense and hottest blasts of water.
5. Avoid standing utencils in the silverware basket. Lay them down on the top rack.
6. Small bowls should stand at attention.  Line them up in the top drawer and have the ones in the rear face forward and the ones in the front face the back. Then the center sprayer can reach them all.
7. Only start the washer when you have a full load. It uses the same amount of water and energy to wash a full or a small load of dishes.
8. Set a time to run the dishwasher. This will minimize guess work of whether or not the dishes are clean. I have some friends who used to write on their white dishwasher with a dry erase marker to notifiy the status of the washer.
9. Let dishes airdry. If you know you are not in a hurry to put the dishes up, let the dishes air dry in the washer instead of using the heated dry option. This will save money on your energy bill.

At the end of the day, I've realized that I prefer to wash dishes by hand. Unless we have a dinner party. It's just too many rules for me. If I have to pre-rinse, strategically place them in a washer, and STILL have to strategically place them in my cabinets, WHAT'S THE POINT?? My sister was right, I AM the dishwasher lol.

© BeSpoken Spaces 2009