The delegation struggle is real
All glamour, all the time, that’s me… This week, my essential guide to washing up and a recipe for Séan’s tomato salad.
I am terrible at delegating. Even at Christmas, the best I can summon when people ask if they can help with the feast is perhaps they might like to bring some crackers to go with the cheese. When I lived in London, I only trusted one friend to actually bring cheese, as she seems to be in some kind of weird co-dependent relationship with Neal’s Yard Dairy and, being a terrible person, I was keen to exploit that to my own benefit.
As July begins, so does my third season as an accidental seaside landlady. Any minute now, we’ll be picking our friends and our family up from railway stations and airports across the South West. Genuinely, nothing makes me happier than this.
At the weekend, we went to the Village du Brocanteur, just over an hour from here in Camargue, to see if we could find a chest of drawers for one of the guest rooms. I found the drawers, but on the way out I saw a stash of china. I cannot resist a pretty plate, and you can’t make me.
It was Luneville Old Strasbourg, a pretty French country pattern of pink flowers and green leaves. There were fifteen dinner plates, fifteen soup bowls, two serving platters, two small serving plates, a salad bowl and a little tea pot. Now, I know to a French person this might be as ubiquitous as Eternal Beau is to English people. That design was introduced by Johnson Brothers in 1981 to coincide with “the romantic and fairytale atmosphere surrounding the wedding of Charles and Diana” and was the top pick on a certain kind of wedding list, long after Charles and Diana’s marriage was over. But I lost my heart to Old Strasbourg anyway. It was for sale by the piece, but it was hot and it was the grand braderie (clearance sale) and there were deals to be done.
When you visit the Village du Brocanteur, even if one of the stallholders isn’t there, you catch the attention of one of the members of staff in orange T shirts and they’ll call them on your behalf and – even better – negotiate for you. In the past, an assistant called Sayeed has helped us. Sayeed’s our guy (they all work on commission, so the etiquette is that if possible you stick with the person who first helped you). “Sayeed, how much for the whole lot?” He called the owner. Within a few minutes, we had a great deal.
I came home and shared a picture of my new treasures on Instagram. One of my insta friends, Joanna Cary, replied that her grandmother had this service and that she’d collected it ever since. I said I would like to find some breakfast cups, and she replied, “The breakfast cups are my greatest joy, huge, beautiful, the best start to the day, what a great find. Is it the modern sort, or the old paste sort. Either way it’s a little prone to breakages (my dear friend Rosie’s husband has broken an entire wedding present service of it over decades of slipshod washing up!)”
Reading that, I did such a big sigh. Séan, momentarily distracted from the football on television, asked me what had happened. Washing up. Bad washing up is what happened.
Worse even than my food control-freakery, is my washing up anxiety. I twitch. I may pretend to be having a rare old time laughing at your jokes, but I constantly have an eye on Auntie May over there, who has heroically volunteered to wash up despite having consumed everything from cocktails to digestifs, and is presently scouring the roasting pan with a greasy lamb bone. Another heroic volunteer is drying up with a towel I use to wash the dogs. Apart from that, I’m totally relaxed.
The list of what I won’t put in the dishwasher is as long as one of the more BANGING ON AND ON chapters of The Bible. No wooden spoons or chopping boards, no silver, no gilt-edged plates, no bone-handled knives or kitchen prep knives, none of the good glasses, no copper pans, cast iron enamelled pans… As that covers just about everything I need to lay on a big lunch, it pretty much all gets washed by hand. Often by me. Because I am an idiot.
In terms of washing-up order, I follow the crisp instructions outlined in Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook (if you ever need something really heavy to throw at a burglar, I can highly recommend). “Wash dishes in this order: crystal, glassware, clear glass plates, other plates, flatware [cutlery], serving ware then the greasiest serving dishes and finally pots and pans. Start with the least soiled dishes and end with the greasiest.”
It astonishes me (I am easily astonished to be honest, but still) to watch people loading things onto the drainer that look like they’ve escaped from an Ibiza foam party, or possibly Jeff Bezos’s wedding.
And then it comes to the water. I have a Spanish friend who is horrified, HORRIFIED, by the British washing up bowl to the point of neurosis. “Why you wash up in this FILTH?” He washes up under running water. I know what he means, but it feels wasteful to me. I fill my sink (not a washing up bowl, I do think they’re grubby, as plastic clings onto grease like a desperate suitor) with lots of hot soapy water and replace it frequently. The water should still look clean; if it’s taken on the appearance of bouillon stop what you’re doing and send yourself directly to prison.
And then I rinse. It astonishes me (I am easily astonished to be honest, but still) to watch people loading things onto the drainer that look like they’ve escaped from an Ibiza foam party, or possibly Jeff Bezos’s wedding. Why do you want your dishes to taste of soap? Rinsing is easy if you have a double sink, but if not, a plastic bowl kept exclusively for this purpose does very well.
When drying, replace the cloths frequently because it is miserable enough without struggling on with a damp rag, which will leave your glasses smeary anyway so you have wasted all of that fine effort with the washing and the scrubbing and the rinsing.
When we have housefuls of people, we are often burdened with lots of revoltingly greasy, scorched or otherwise abused pans and tins. I have rescued many of these in the least manicure-spoiling way possible. I crumble in a dishwasher tablet, add a lot of boiling water, then leave for a few hours and that usually gets rid of the worst. A handful of biological washing powder works too. Once, in the good old days of Twitter, Nigella recommended using a dryer sheet. I haven’t tried this, but I am sure it works, because FAITH.
My essential tips to survive visitors wanting to help you
Make sure the dish washer, if you have one, is empty before you sit down to eat. Also, sinks. This will give you half a chance of sanity when it comes to clearing up.
Make sure you have plenty of washing up liquid; dishwasher gubbins such as salt, rinse aid, tablets; clean tea towels; rubber gloves; washing-up cloths; scrubby sponges and those non-scratch scourers.
Depending on how much space you have, don’t let people volunteer to clear the table all at once, as it will leave you with a skip’s worth of dirty dishes and nowhere to put the stuff you have washed and dried.
If possible, roughly arrange the things to be washed in the order you’re going to wash them – glasses first, pans last (see above). It will help you get through it more speedily.
Don’t buy any kitchen equipment that doesn’t go in the dish washer safely. It is too late for me. Save yourselves.
Quiet voice I am aware I may need some sort of support group.
Séan’s tomato salad
I was working at the weekend and I asked Séan to make dinner, something to go with steaks, and he came up with this zingy tomato salad. I’ve now made it three times. I’m going to make it all summer – to go with roast chicken and grilled fish, barbecued meat, and to enjoy just on its own with some baguette. Now there’s an idea. It would be amazing in a sandwich.
He used a tiny amount of our precious chilli crisp stash in the dressing. This fiery condiment, crunchy chilli flakes and other seasonings in oil, has so many uses and we often bring it back with us from England, though I’ve recently discovered it’s sometimes available at the China Market in Béziers. If you don’t have any in your cupboard (do seek it out if you’re a heat freak like me), use a dash of hot sauce or a pinch of chilli flakes, or leave it out.
Serves 4
A generous 4 tbsp fromage blanc or Greek yoghurt
½ - 1 tsp chilli crisp or a good pinch of chilli flakes
4 cornichons, about 35g, diced
3 sundried tomatoes in oil, about 45g, drained and thinly sliced
1 tbsp finely-diced shallot
1 tbsp chopped chives, plus some more to finish
1 tsp capers, drained if in brine or rinsed if in salt, roughly chopped, plus a few more to finish
3-4 large tomatoes, about 300g each, cored and sliced, or diced into big pieces or wedges
A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved, optional
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a bowl, stir together the fromage blanc or Greek yoghurt with the chilli crisp, hot sauce or chilli flakes if you want to add some heat. Stir in the cornichons, sundried tomatoes, shallot, chives and capers. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
At this point, you can either slice the tomatoes, arrange them on a plate, and spoon the dressing over the top, or cut the tomatoes into wedges or dice it into big pieces and toss it in the dressing. Finish with a scattering of capers and some chopped chives.
Printable recipe
Market haul, July 1 2025
Peaches, garlic, limes, a sweet onion, green beans, tomatoes, endive, courgettes, fennel, yellow plums, red pepper, cucumber, sweet potato.
Debora, only you could make a piece about washing up such fun to read! 👏
I was very excited to read this post because I agree, there is immense skill in doing the dishes.. I agree with cleanest first, hottest soapy water and rinsing. But thereafter we must diverge my friend because drying up is a concept I just don't understand. Why do something hot water and mother nature will do for you if you know how to stack?
There is no real skill in washing up, anybody can do that, most learn whilst still a child that if they do it badly they will never have to do it again. There is not a child in this world who has not had their exasperated Mother rip the wash cloth from their hands whilst stating that for god's sake she'd rather do it herself than watch you do it for one more moment. Given this there is really no incentive to improve.
Stacking the drainer is the real skill here, did I say skill? obviously I meant art. There are of course rules, first and foremost if it's only you/your family at home then you must only ever use a single drainer. Your mission is to get everything in that drainer, it can take years to perfect this. You are successful only if your drainer looks like one of those donkeys hauling goods up and down the Silk Road, e.g. the load must be at least 3 times higher than the vessel carrying it.
I don't want to appear pedantic about this so I will allow for occasional exceptions. You can use an overflow drainer for dinner parties of more than 10 guests and 3 courses, small back yard weddings and Christmas day at yours but only if there are at least 2nd cousins coming. If it's just your immediate family forget it.