Our dishwasher broke. Earlier this year it was the dryer, which ended up becoming a little game for me of “how long can we hang dry all of our laundry to save up for a dryer before I break down?” The game lasted several months.
Now the dishwasher is broken. We’ll see how long we last.
As a child, our move from the north side of Chicago to the suburbs was one huge cross-cultural adventure. I had never seen so many White people in my life. I had never seen cornfields. I had never seen such a nice playground.
I had never seen a dishwasher.
And for most of my time at my parents’ home the dishwasher served as a giant dish rack. As far as I know my parents still rarely use the dishwasher to wash dishes.
So when my dishwasher made the loud screeching, groaning sounds and didn’t actually clean a single item I stared at my double sink and wondered. How do you hand wash all of your dishes? I grew up putting dishwashing soap on the sponge and scrubbing each item, re-soaping the sponge as needed while running as little water as possible. And then we would rinse each item in the hottest water possible while wearing gloves (I prefer the pink ones pictured because they are thicker and longer and pink). And then we put the wet dishes in the dishwasher to dry.
But I’m guessing that there is a different method to this madness.
How do you wash your dishes? Did any of you grow up using the dishwasher as a dish rack (and also for storage of pots and pans)?