"What are those diapers for?"

I mentioned dish towels in one of my ramblings about food safety and have been thinking ever since about how different my kitchen is in that regard these days. Once upon a time, my one drawer that is assigned to kitchen cloths (both dish cloths and towels and other minor necessities) was stuffed so full, I could hardly close it. It was full of terry cloth dish towels. Not a lot, mind you, but as many as the drawer could hold. I rarely needed to use all of them between launderings, but I could certainly thin the drawer out if I took a while between times of turning on the washing machine.

Things got a little harder when the aforementioned cousin stayed with us for a while. She could empty that drawer in nothing flat. I began to think that she mopped the floor with them, except, of course, that you can't mop my kitchen. *sigh*

Anyhoo, I happened to mention to #2MIL one day that I needed to get more cup towels and then whined about how full that drawer was. Where would I even put more cup towels? Some time later, we got our Christmas presents from My Prince's dad and stepmom (#2MIL). For some reason, My Prince brought the gifts to our house, so I must have been elsewhere when they were handed out. That meant that I needed to call #2MIL and thank her for the gift, but what, I wondered, were those diapers for? So I asked her.

"Those are cup towels," she told me, laughing. My basic response was: Huh? Everyone knows that cup towels are made of terry cloth and printed with more or less domestic themed pictures (and flowers, of course). How could these plain white squares of woven cotton be dish towels?

I quickly found out.

Sometimes called a flour sack dishtowel, these babies can be used in a zillion ways. When wet, they dry quickly. When folded, they take up much less space in my crowded little drawer. They are suitable for all seasons.

Once I tried these towels, I none too slowly got rid of almost all of the terry in my little drawer and bought more of the sacking ones. I even appliqued a few as a later gift for #2MIL, just to show her how very much I appreciated the introduction to these little jewels. Now terry cloth dish towels feel so clumsy, and I am stealthily trying to introduce my favorite towels to Mama's kitchen.