Wash my dishes!

The Coziest Kitchen in Central America!

In the July of 2009, I packed up my backpack and I took off to Costa Rica to spend a month as an intern at Punta Mona, a permaculture farm on the south Caribbean coast.  It was definitely an off-the-grid experience, with very limited electricity and running water.  The solar panels needed a part that was unavailable in the nearest towns, so the kitchen was the only area of the farm that we had access to electricity at all during my stay, and even there, we only ran the lights during the dinner hours.  The rest of the time, we relied on candles and headlamps and battery- or solar-powered devices and chargers.  You'd think we would have slept more given the fact that the sun set around 6 PM every night.  Not true... 

Holla! Who needs an electric alarm clock when these guys will wake you at 5 AM?

In terms of the water situation, we used rainwater that was collected in a huge basin, located up a hill from the farm center.  The water ran through pvc pipes to the kitchen sink, to the bathroom sink and the laundry sink, to the showers, and to the greenhouse.  I believe we had a separate rainwater catchment system for drinking water, equipped with a filter.  My knowledge of the exact workings of the water system was limited, for sure.  But it was impossible not to be aware of the shortage.  If the pipe from the hill came apart somewhere along the way, we'd have no water until someone found the detached joint and repaired it.  Depending on the showering and watering of the residents, the water flow varied.  It never blasted from the faucets, at most there would be a steady, small flow.  More typically, a dismal, slow trickle.

To wash dishes, there was a very specific system.  The mosaic sink had three basins, each containing a extra-large stainless-steel bowl for water.  The first bowl was for washing and scrubbing the dishes with soap.  The second bowl was for rinsing.  The third bowl contained water mixed with small amount of a liquid sterilization treatment--we'd sit dishes in this bowl for approximately 30 seconds.  

Giardia is bad; sterilizing bowl on the right!

Filling these bowls up was a tedious affair when the water pressure was reduced to a trickle, and given the amount of dishes we'd produce cooking for ~20 people ever night, it was not unusual for one or more of these bowls to need their water changed in the middle of doing dishes.  We'd put it off for as long as possible--sometimes longer. To prevent the wash water from getting too dirty with food, we'd thoroughly scrape lingering food of all plates and bowls into a bucket to feed to the chickens (we ate vegetarian, and mostly vegan fare, on the farm--lots of rice and plantains and wild greens).

 "Serve fresh-made chocolate on a biodegradable banana leaf to avoid a dirty dish."

Back at home, I tried to apply the knowledge and techniques I'd learned for living with limited electricity and water, but over time, I grew lazy or complacent and stopped paying so much attention.  Until this month! So let's return to our ongoing tour of my kitchen and look at the water situation.  

You may have noticed that I did not list “dishwasher” in my kitchen appliance list.  I’ve lived with a dishwasher for approximately 16 of the 204 months of my adult life; those were 16 special, special months.  During the remaining 188 months, I have been soaking, scrubbing, and rinsing my dishes by hand.  Occasionally, when my dry rack is full, I even have been known to towel dry dishes by hands.

While I have no dishwasher, my kitchen is blessed with a double-sided sink.  The double-sided sink is a godsend for anyone who uses their kitchen as much as I do, and it is handy for applying Punta Mona-style dish-washing practices.  Ideally, I can soap up my dishes on one side and then rinse the other side, collecting the water to soak future dirty dishes in.  After I drain the soap side, I have one side of the sink free for draining pasta, rinsing produce, filling up large stockpots, or whatever. 

My sink.  Dish soaking on the left, veggies washing on the right.

*MIND YOU, rinsing produce in a colander and draining pasta can waste a lot of water, so I’m doing my best to collect and reuse the water like I already do with my dish-rinse water for appropriate household tasks, like watering my plants. *

Colander=out!  Getting my homegrown greens soggy a bowl of water=in!

The other thing I need to monitor at home is my hot water usage. (This was not a problem at Punta Mona, due to the above-mentioned defective solar panels.)  Now, chances are I’ve got the water turned to hot.  This is because I can't remember which way to point the handle for hot water and which for cold.  (Must post sticky note!)  Yes, hot water can be very helpful in removing caked food from dishes.  But it takes a long time for my water to get hot; it's barely lukewarm when I turn off the water most of the time.  However, just because the water isn't hot yet does not mean that my hot water heater hasn't been using a ton of energy trying to heat that water. Fun Factoid: after home heat and cooling, water heating is the third biggest energy expense in the typical home.

So my Kitchen Water-Saving Action points are:

This post is just an excuse for pics of my sink.

1. Employ off-the-grid dish-washing techniques from Punta Mona.
2. If I'm not doing dishes right away, use collected rinse water from my last dish-washing bender for soaking so I don't need hot water and sand paper to get caked-on food off. 
3. Do nastier pots and pans right away before food cakes on so I don’t need to run extra water to soak these bigger dishes, and also to keep them from hogging up my precious sink real estate for long.
4. If I have leftover hot water heated from making tea or coffee, I should make good use of that for tougher wash jobs.
5. Rinse small produce (berries, peapods, radishes) in a bowl of water instead of running water over a colander.  Use my vegetable brush and peeler to reduce the amount I need to wash carrots, potatoes, and other root vegetables.
6. Conserve water from pasta, rinsing produce, and steaming veggies for plants and yard.
   

This is NOT my sink. But I did make mashed potatoes with these cleaned spuds in 2007.

So that's it.  That's my water conservation plan!  Stay tuned for a fascinating look at my LAUNDRY next time (for which I'm sure you'll be waiting with baited breath).