On dirty dish towels

What's the deal with dish towels? Should I designate one for drying plates and another for mopping up quick cooking spills? My dish towels never smell very good even fresh out of the wash and I'm starting to think I'm doing something wrong here.

Your towels smell bad after laundering because they are sitting wet in your hamper for too long before you wash them. They are getting mildewy. Wash them with a small amount of bleach — this is meant for sanitizing, not whitening — and they should freshen up. If not, chuck ‘em.

I recommend following this two-towel system:

Your Drying Towels: These should be used only for drying clean dishes and clean hands. They can get wet but shouldn’t ever get dirty. Store them hanging (not folded) so that they dry out fully.  Replace with clean towels every time the thought crosses your mind, or every few dish-drying sessions.

Your Kitchen Towels: Use these to wipe down surfaces and clean up spills. Keep one folded on the countertop and twenty (yeah, I said what I said) freshly laundered spares in the cupboard. Having a robust inventory of clean kitchen towels will improve your mental health. 

Me folding my kitchen towels

Fortunately I’ve never worked under a chef-dictator, but a common practice is for line cooks to get two towels per shift—and a skillet thrown at them if those towels aren’t folded into neat little squares on the bench top. This cutesy standard is so entrenched in restaurant kitchen culture that the health department will issue a code violation for a crumpled dish towel but not a folded one. What’s the food safety science behind this? Uh...unclear.

Here’s my official Nom Nom Vom Vom recommendation for kitchen towels*. They come in bales (when was the last time you bought a bale of something?) and you will experience acute satisfaction when you see them lined up in your cupboard. Also, they’re so cheap that you can buy a ton and it will make you feel wealthy. Last, you can throw them away when they get super dirty and justify it because hey, you don’t buy paper towels anymore.

*This is not an affiliate link because the referral would only net me one dime and four pennies. My integrity and your web privacy is worth at least two dimes.

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