The things we can live without …or do you wash dishes by hand?

A recent essay in The New York Times Magazine praised the virtues of washing dishes by hand. The writer had worked in a small restaurant while in college,      and his duties included dishwashing and, late at night, blowing into the breathalyzer on the boss’ car so the boss could drive home drunk. I have no comment on the breathalyzer, but the dishwashing interested me. The restaurant had a commercial machine, but he ended up doing dishes by hand and apparently has still been doing that until he and his wife made a recent decision to purchase a dishwasher. He wrote, “Washing dishes, I give myself the chance to remember that ordinary isn’t the enemy but the bedrock upon which the rest of experience ebbs and flows.”

A dishwasher is one of the appliances I do not have. Like a stove, it’s part of that built-in kitchen that zoning laws forbid. (For those who are puzzled, zoning does not permit two kitchens on one property—an effort to keep nearby university students out of garage apartments and the like). I suppose if I wanted, I could have a portable dishwasher that I had to plug in and hook to the faucet, but there’s not room in my kitchen. I had one once in my salad days and remember that it was more trouble than it was worth.

Besides, like the essayist, I don’t really mind dishes. How many pots and pans can one person dirty? When I get down to it, washing dishes for most meals is quick and easy. Maybe one pot or skillet, one plate, a bowl, a bit of flatware. It’s done and draining before I know it. It would probably take me as long to rinse and load a dishwasher, and then the task of emptying it would loom large. And I too find it a reflective time, a time when I can put my mind on hold and go with the flow. That’s something I’m not usually good at doing.

Dirty dishes weigh on my conscience, a product I guess of a certain degree of OCD on my part. Sometimes I’ll sit with an empty plate on my desk, working away, for an hour or more. And I’ll put off thinking about the dishes at the sink. But guilt will get me. I almost never let dishes accumulate from one meal to the next, and ever since I’ve been keeping house, it’s been a firm practice never to go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. Yep, OCD. Probably one advantage of the dishwasher, even for a single person—you can put the dishes out of sight, so your conscience is clear.

The essay also got me to thinking about other things I do without. The New York Times Cooking Community Facebook page has had an interesting thread on InstaPots that has brought a lot of people out of the woodwork who don’t use this latest magic appliance for cooks. One woman said she didn’t like the final taste, and most, like me, balk at the steep learning curve. I suppose the same is true of air fryers, though I note that Emeril has come out with an air fryer that will supposedly replace almost all your small kitchen appliances.

I also live without a microwave, though occasionally I wish for one. I simply don’t have the counter space. When I first moved into the cottage, my older daughter visited and convinced me I didn’t need the microwave. But then she spent the rest of her visit saying, “I’ll just run into the house and heat this in the microwave.” I use small ovenproof casseroles to reheat food in the toaster oven—not quite as speedy but good enough for someone like me who had given up hurrying.

I’ve become an advocate for the simple life, at least in the kitchen—fewer appliances, more things done the “old-fashioned” way, though I am not, like Thoreau, claiming any special virtue to the simple life lived deliberately. It just works for me.

Excuse me…the lunch dishes are in the sink, and I must go.

Overcoming Inertia

 

Once I told a colleague that I usually got food for the cat while swishing mouthwash around in my mouth because who wants to just stand there for sixty seconds. She howled with laughter. “You of all people would not want to waste sixty seconds.” And that’s been the pattern of my life—maybe a little shy of OCD but not much. I’ve always kept busy.

Lately I’ve been troubled by a lack of energy, an unwillingness to do simple chores around the house, though I’m perfectly content to follow odd leads, read long e-mails, etc. at my computer. Is it the much-dreaded computer addiction? Is inertia a sign of aging? What happened to my ambition? It’s been worse, of course, since my swollen foot. I’ve written enough about that to last a lifetime, but I will say it’s better today—not perfect, but I’m wearing shoes and making a conscious effort to walk normally.

This morning I decided my project would be to dig in to the reader’s “points to ponder” in “Murder at Peacock Mansion”—they were all valid points that added depth to the manuscript, like a reference to Miss Havisham or the subtle difference between using “handgun” and “pistol.” Ten minutes later I’d taken care of all of them, so I decided I would read through the manuscript one more time before sending it to the editor.

About noon, while I ate lunch, I took a break and turned to the novel I’m currently reading. Didn’t take me long to decide my own manuscript was more interesting—is that ego or what?—and go back to editing. It’s amazing what you find even though you’ve read the darn thing countless times. Today I found a woman had two children on one page, one a bit later, and then four. Now she only has one—a spoiled diva of a young woman. I found on my own places where I could add a little depth of character, a little more sense of place—and I was having fun doing it.

Tonight I’m through—my mysteries are fairly short—and pleased with the result. One place I need to go back and tweet and then it goes to the editor. So maybe I’m past inertia. I also did two loads of laundry, tried on a new shirt I’d ordered and decided to keep it (it lay on the bedroom chair for several days), and managed to keep up with the kitchen—not hard when I’m home alone all day and a friend brings supper. But I’m going to keep working on this inertia thing—there are always little things to be done: the dishwasher should be run—it smells musty which may signal the end of my not using the hot-dry cycle; there’s a blue canvas bag on the dining room floor that belongs to a friend but needs to be safely stored for her; a few clean clothes to hang in my closet. Little stuff like that I once would never have overlooked and now I do. I have decided to tackle a bit of it each day.

Sweet dreams, friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Overcoming inertia

 Once I told a colleague that I usually got food for the cat while swishing mouthwash around in my mouth because who wants to just stand there for sixty seconds. She howled with laughter. “You of all people would not want to waste sixty seconds.” And that’s been the pattern of my life—maybe a little shy of OCD but not much. I’ve always kept busy.
Lately I’ve been troubled by a lack of energy, an unwillingness to do simple chores around the house, though I’m perfectly content to follow odd leads, read long e-mails, etc. at my computer. Is it the much-dreaded computer addiction? Is inertia a sign of aging? What happened to my ambition? It’s been worse, of course, since my swollen foot. I’ve written enough about that to last a lifetime, but I will say it’s better today—not perfect, but I’m wearing shoes and making a conscious effort to walk normally.
This morning I decided my project would be to dig in to the reader’s “points to ponder” in “Murder at Peacock Mansion”—they were all valid points that added depth to the manuscript, like a reference to Miss Havisham or the subtle difference between using “handgun” and “pistol.” Ten minutes later I’d taken care of all of them, so I decided I would read through the manuscript one more time before sending it to the editor.
About noon, while I ate lunch, I took a break and turned to the novel I’m currently reading. Didn’t take me long to decide my own manuscript was more interesting—is that ego or what?—and go back to editing. It’s amazing what you find even though you’ve read the darn thing countless times. Today I found a woman had two children on one page, one a bit later, and then four. Now she only has one—a spoiled diva of a young woman. I found on my own places where I could add a little depth of character, a little more sense of place—and I was having fun doing it.
Tonight I’m through—my mysteries are fairly short—and pleased with the result. One place I need to go back and tweak and then it goes to the editor. So maybe I’m past inertia. I also did two loads of laundry, tried on a new shirt I’d ordered and decided to keep it (it lay on the bedroom chair for several days), and managed to keep up with the kitchen—not hard when I’m home alone all day and a friend brings supper. But I’m going to keep working on this inertia thing—there are always little things to be done: the dishwasher should be run—it smells musty which may signal the end of my not using the hot-dry cycle; there’s a blue canvas bag on the dining room floor that belongs to a friend but needs to be safely stored for her; a few clean clothes to hang in my closet. Little stuff like that I once would never have overlooked and now I do. I have decided to tackle a bit of it each day.
Sweet dreams, friends.