Jumbo the Towel

Even dish towels were better in the old days. Today’s thick dish towels shrink every time you wash them, until you’re left with essentially a pile of assorted large potholders. Our mothers’ impeccable kitchen towel hierarchy was better, i.e., one terry cloth towel (for hands) and one large, fine, thin cotton towel (for dishes). The terry jobs are easy to find, but where, oh where, are those thin cotton towels: towels so lint-free and fine you could get a great clean gleam on every cut in the crystal, towels so large they made dandy aprons, towels so light they dried fast and never soured?

At Williams-Sonoma, for one place. Jumbo Jennies, elephantine 30x38-inch cotton towels made in China, are $9 for a pack of four. They’re large enough for svelte folk to knot into long, clothes-shielding impromptu aprons, and larger cooks can tuck them into waistbands or tie them around the waist with string to the same effect.

Jumbo Jennies also make great salad dryers (and take up far less shelf space than others). Wash greens and place them in the center of a dry, clean Jumbo Jenny. Gather up the corners, step outside and swing the lettuce overhead until dry. Centrifugal force does the drying, and the method builds upper body strength too.