Washing up, and the whys and wherefores of certain aspects thereof.

You've no doubt noticed that I like to cook, and naturally such an activity leads to pans and utensils which need to be washed. Some of these, depending on durability of item and qualities of what's attached, can simply be placed into the dishwasher, but others require a little specialised treatment.

Naturally, the best approach is to wash up as soon as possible, but inevitably one becomes uncreatively lazy and fails to do so. Some items benefit from soaking, but others do not. Particularly soak-needing items are ice cream, oatmeal, meats in sauces, and raw eggs. These all have one thing in common: protein. That stuff loves to denature, and tends to stick when it does so. If you don't soak, they'll become caked on, and it's more than a dishwasher can do to get them off. You'll tend to need to scrub, which is why you need to make sure not to make oatmeal in a non-stick pan; it sticks enough to need scrubbing sufficient to remove the non-stick. Cereals and milk, in fact, often tended to be the basis for wood glues in years past. This makes oatmeal a truly horrible thing for sticking.