Washing Dishes
To wash dishes, silver, and knives, you need: A clean sink, plenty of hot water, soap without much soda in it, a dish drainer, dish cloths and mops, a soap shaker, a cake of sapolio, a bottle of dilute ammonia, a knife cleaner, plenty of clean, dry towels.
Make a suds not too strong. Too much soap quickly takes color and gilding off from china.
Never leave soap lying in the water.
Begin with the glass, and see that every glass is emptied before you begin to wash. Cold water in one, some milk in another, claret in another, will soon make your pan unfit to wash anything in.
The rule for glass holds good for cups. See that every cup is emptied before you begin to wash.
When a pitcher has been used for milk or cream, rinse it first with cold water, and you will have no trouble to cleanse it. The same rule applies to tumblers.
After the glass, take the delicate china cups and saucers, dessert plates, etc. Put your mind on your work. Inspect each piece when it leaves your hand to see if it is perfectly clean and dry.
By the time the glass and fine china are washed the water will be chilled. Let it run out, and make a fresh hot suds for the silver.
Never leave soap lying in the water.
When silver is washed clean and laid on the drainer, fill a pitcher with hot water and pour over it.
Now use your judgment and see whether the water is clean enough and hot enough for dishes. If it is, take a pile of plates, or your vegetable dishes, or whatever you think you can cleanse without needing hot water.
Change the water whenever it is necessary.
Never on any account leave dishes lying in
the water while you go to attend to something elsewhere. To do so injures gilding and color. Remember if you are quick you can do a good deal before one water cools, and you will have to change only when it is soiled.
Never put many dishes to wash at one time. The size of your sink or pan will regulate the number. Put dishes of one kind in at one time, and dishes of another kind in the next time. Then you can work rapidly.
If you put in a pile of dinner plates, some bread-and-butter plates, a little pitcher, and a sauce boat, and you find when you are through that the pitcher is cracked, a handle off of the sauce boat, and a chip out of one of the large plates, do not report that you could not prevent these accidents. Such things do not come under the head of accidents; they come under the head of carelessness.
You may rinse plates and dishes in the same way that you do silver, with this difference: you must see that the water poured upon delicate china is not too hot, or it will crack it.
Before you begin to wash at all, ask yourself where you are going to stand your dishes when they are dried. Arrange so that you have room enough without letting clean dishes touch soiled ones, or without being obliged to put dry dishes on a wet spot.
When your silver is dried put it away. Do not let it lie where it will be spattered from the washing of the next things.
There are two good reasons for spreading out a clean towel on which to lay your silver as you dry it. One is that the silver does not get scratched, and the other is that it enables you to handle it in a noiseless manner.
There is a good reason for washing dishes of one kind together, aside from the question of cracking and chipping. When they are washed and dried they are ready to put away without further sorting.
Silver trays used at each meal should be washed after each meal, just as regularly as a bread plate or a crumb tray. Sometimes crumbs fall on a tray, sometimes a drop from
a sauce boat. These you can see; but, unless you think about it, you will not realize that you cannot serve a meal without leaving finger marks and dull spots on the edge of a tray.
Watch the inside of your pitchers. Sediment from boiling water or stains from chocolate may be easily removed the first day; after that twice the time, at least, will be needed to efface them. If clear water or hot soapsuds will not do it, use a little sapolio.
When your dishes and silver all are finished, cleanse your steel knives. Never let the handles touch the water. Hold in your left hand and wash the blades with your right. After they are washed scour the blades with bath brick or on an emery board. Let the blade rest flat upon your board; this prevents bending and loosening the handle.
There is a knife cleaner which many ladies would like to have used for their knives, if they knew that it would be properly used. It is a disk with emery pads on a wheel, and has
spaces for both small knives and carvers. If the knives are put in as they should be, a few turns of the wheel will polish and sharpen them at the same time. If carelessly put in, both knives and machine can be spoiled in one using. But this machine is costly, and you will need to prove yourself an expert before adding it to the pantry furnishings.