I’ve got FOUR! So no more sloshing around in the sink
DISHWASHER COUNT: 4
For me, the desire for multiple dishwashers is rooted in my childhood, growing up in London and holidaying in Austria.
My mother is a great entertainer, but the downside of friends and family coming together for meals was, of course, the extraordinary amounts of washing-up created.
My two younger sisters, olivia and Chiara, now aged 32 and 36, and I were always required to help with the washing-up.
‘Just leave it to drip-dry,’ I’d implore my mother, desperate to get back to my ponies and despairing at the piles of crockery piling up on the draining board. She always refused.
Now I understand why. If you leave piles of wet dishes, more are always placed on top of them — re-wetting the originals and streaking clean plates and glasses with rivulets of water.
As an adult I, too, like to have a gleaming kitchen. My husband Ben and I love to entertain, and we hate to leave a kitchen dirty at the end of the night.
of course, 1am isn’t the ideal time to tidy up, but it’s nothing compared with attempting it at 6am with a fuzzy head from red wine, two children running around and a kitchen reeking of alcohol.
I do the cooking, Ben does the clearing up, and we both agree that everything has to be tidied before we go to bed. With the four dishwashers humming away, we can enjoy a final glass of wine rather than spending the last hour of a fun evening sloshing dirty dishwater around a sink.
The washers, from Fisher & Paykel, were here when we moved in — two sets of two stacking drawers each which slide out from under the counter individually.
We put everything in the dishwasher and I only allow dishwasher-proof items into our home. Forget about delicate crystal and bone-handled knives. If you can’t handle a direct spray of hot water, then you have no place in the Fogle household.
I am particularly appreciative of my four dishwashers at breakfast time. Ludo and Iona treat the first meal of the day as though it’s a running buffet in a five-star hotel. I’m happy to serve many courses of cereal, eggs, fruit and yoghurt. I’m equally happy to throw everything in the dishwasher and turn it on immediately. returning to a dishwasher smelling of stale milk is disgusting.
The two of them can follow simple recipes. But the amount of dirty dishes created by a fouryear-old attempting banana bread and muffins are extraordinary.
Again, how wonderful to always have the space to put all the flour and butter-smeared plates straight into the washer.
I think it’s important for the children to learn about tidying up and they even know to bring their plates to the dishwashers. But do they appreciate them?
Don’t be ridiculous. They’d rather play with bubbles.