This could have gone into
energy conservation, but I figure that cooks are the ones most likely to do the dishes.
................
It often happens, that we run out of forks, long before we run out of
spoons and knives. Most of my dishes are done in a nearly new dishwasher, that I am perfectly happy with. For some reason, my friend and landlord, has 14 forks and probably 40 spoons. The forks always run out before the other cutlery. Enough preamble.
......
Because of the small quantity, I always wash them in a cup. When
water for
coffee is boiled, in the morning, I boil 1 cup extra. The forks are put in with about 2 drops of dishwashing liquid. This is the only time that I use boiling water for dishes. The house needs heat at this hour and it's electrically heated. So, there's no real energy cost to this. The water doesn't go down the drain until it has given up it's heat to the room. It is poured into other dishes that are waiting in the sink.
I use the very tall cup, pictured, because it covers 3/4 of the length of the cutlery, so that all of it gets cleaned. They are placed working end down, then
hot water is added, until the cup is almost full. After 5 minutes, they are turned over. There's no scrubbing or oscillation. Just time in the
hot water seems to do it. Then the cup and the forks are given a cold water rinse. They are stood handle down in the cup, and left to dry. That's it. It happens much faster than it took to write this. :-)
The cup has a really nice picture, which was painted by the Canadian artist Lawren S Harris.