Here is something that you never knew! There is a right way and a wrong way to stack your dishwasher basket for cutlery, and the likelihood is that you have been doing it all wrong.

Very many people stack the dishwasher basket for cutlery with the knife blades and fork prongs pointing upwards, but that is completely wrong. The simple fact is that loading the basket with the points and prongs upwards means that there is a very good chance of stabbing yourself in the finger or hand when you try to grab them to remove them.

All right, you would have trouble hurting yourself on a spoon, whichever way up it was, but grabbing a knife blade can cause a nasty injury, especially if it has a serrated edge as many cook knives do. The points of forks and the blades of kitchen scissors can also be damaging. It can cause problems in the home kitchen, but in commercial premises where time is of the essence and the knives and forks may be needed again shortly, it is all too easy to grab hold of them the wrong way.

Another point is that when the cutlery is loaded points and prongs down, and the spoons also, it is simply a lot easier to grab them by the handle rather than the other end. When you put them in the drawer, you need the handles towards the front so that you can pick them up easily again when they are required for the table. If you pick them up by the point/prongs or whatever in one hand, you are going to have to put them into the other hand which will hold them by the handles for putting them away so that everything is facing in the right direction when they are next needed.

There is also the question of hygiene. The sharp bits are those which come into contact with the food and if you pick them up by those parts, bacteria and germs on your hands can get transferred to them and thence to the food. Furthermore, your hands and fingers can cause smudges on the blades of knives in particular, which doesn’t look good on a restaurant table – or on any table for that matter.

When loading the dishwasher basket for cutlery you should avoid having all the same items in a particular section. They should be mixed up – knives, forks, spoons, and so on – because otherwise they can nest together, and this can result in the items not being properly washed and cleaned. Mixing them up allows the water to get to all the various surfaces.