How to Wash the Dishes

William Denton wrote yesterday, in a postscript to a blogpost:

No library in Canada had this book, and I got it through interlibrary loan from Rice University in Texas. Resource sharing departments are wonderful.

Being the son of a librarian taught me a lot about libraries (and a lot about librarians!), including the superpower of being able to request any book—even, and especially, ones not held by my local library—by interlibrary loan. Here’s the form for doing this from the PEI Public Library Service, and here’s the form for the University of Prince Edward Island (a reminder that all Islanders have borrowing privileges at UPEI).

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading How to Wash the Dishes, by Seattle bookseller Peter Miller. I was prompted to seek it out after reading his Shopkeeping, which I loved. I was also primed by last year reading An Everlasting Meal, by Tamar Adler, the first chapter of which is titled “How to Boil Water”: I realized then that I’m well-suited to learning from lyrical prose on simple topics.

The book arrived in only a few weeks, courtesy of the Vancouver Public Library:

The book delivered: it is, indeed, lyrical prose on the simple topic of washing the dishes, and has had, as my housemates will attest, a palpable effect on my kitchen hygiene. Here’s how Miller introduces the topic:

Almost everyone, at some point in their life, washes the dishes. Not many will do it well and even fewer will look forward to it.

It is a curious task, washing the dishes. Some people save it for themselves, some do it as a sacrifice, and some dread it or avoid doing it entirely.

Washing the dishes in a sink, with clean, warm water, is a luxury. If you have ever lived without clean running water or warm water, or even if you have ever camped in the wilderness, you already know this. It is also a task of order and of health and hygiene. The kitchen is an operating room, and although you may not always be the one operating, you are the one cleaning up after a kind of surgery. You have all the surfaces and all the equipment to scrub and make ready for the next use. You may be lucky enough to have a dishwasher. There will be a mention of dishwashers here and there, but this is a book about washing the dishes, not about machines that wash dishes. This is a book about enjoying your time and using it well. The dishwasher is the express train; your kitchen sink is the local.

This is a primer for the task, with rules and regulations, safety and sense, and a start and a finish. When the kitchen lights are dimmed, there should be a dish towel and a bowl drying. You have finished the meal and closed up shop.

Other than learning how to make a good omelette—there’s a recipe in the book, around which a dishwashing parable is wrapped—the primary change the book has inspired in me is the calling forth to leave the kitchen, after preparing a meal, as though I was never there. This has changed my attitude toward cleaning-as-I-go (I do it more often), and the bar I consider “done” before shutting the light and “closing up shop” (which I’ve set much higher).

There are a few other books in the Peter Miller canon I might seek out: Five Ways to Cook Asparagus, and Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal  both out of print, seem prime candidates for interlibrary loan next.