Most of our moms had ‘good’ towels or ‘guest’ towels that you weren’t allowed to use. At my house, they were packed, two rows deep in the bathroom closet, and so tightly that you couldn’t pull any out without causing a towel-slide. After my mom passed away, it still took me several years before I started using the good bath towels. I wasn’t able to make myself throw away any of the old beat up towels I had, except maybe for the worst of the bunch. They would end up in the laundry and then I’d use them ONE more time. Repeatedly.
I finally decided to toss my oldest dish towels and start using the new ones I had bought, this weekend. I went with a red, white and blue theme. And some black. Cause black goes with everything.
Do you prefer fluffy or linen-type dish towels?
And for the old, some pictures I took a couple of weeks ago. I had thawed some sliced pork butt to make Chinese barbecued pork (char siu) and then realized that I hadn’t replaced my bottle of hoisin sauce, which I needed for the recipe. So, I rummaged through the jars in the fridge and found some satay sauce.
Pork Satay
Cooking is Fun ... Really!! 
I like linen towels for drying dishes.
When I was a boy, our tea towels were old cotton rice bags. My grand parents owned and ran a Chinese restaurant and would buy rice in bulk in large cotton bags. My mother would take them home, wash them and then unpick them, sew a hem along the edges and we had hundreds of tea towels that seemed to last forever. It wasn’t until I left home that I used a linen tea towel that I bought.
I’m torn between the fuzzy kind and the linen type. I think the fuzzy ones absorb more water before they get wet. But the linen ones are really handy for lining my containers when I proof bread. Plus they are useful in straining cheese curds. 🙂
I like the linen ones because they are neater when folding too.
I am so guilty of using the worst kitchen towels!! Honestly I had one that had edged too close to my gas burner and the corner was half singed off and I still used it for a couple years. I guess they just all look so bad after a few weeks I can’t tell the diff between a towel that’s a few years old from a few weeks old…
I know I should be more careful and use rags more. I do try to keep one or two in the back of the drawer for when company is over and a couple nice ones to drape bread dough with.
I like both thick towels for some things and then I have a lot of flour bag towels, I think they call them. For drying or such.
I’ve burned, not just singed, more than a few towels in my day. And let’s not talk about the tomato sauce stains when you pull out your pizza pan or baked lasagna dish. I think some of my ‘towels’ qualify as rags. I should just change the names … and keep using them. 🙂
Kindred spirits, lol!! But I am a little embarrassed by mine sometimes….
Me too. That’s why they get put away when company comes over. 🙂