I have some experience with this fear of microbes or as my mother introduced them to me-microbios. The microbios I knew thrived in the cold and given half the chance they quickly colonized a body. According to Mendolson something similar happens in the neglected kitchen. And the spiritual counterpart to this chilling state of affairs is the hametz-laden kitchen during Passover. After flipping through 884 pages of Mendelson's meticulously researched, extremely detailed tome, I think I have some idea of how she would feel about my mother's empty plate.
Housework is basic yet hard work.
It's the stuff of backstage maneuverings. But there's a romance to it that my mother never fully understood. Besides if Cheryl Mendelson had been there the day the newspaper reporter came to my mother's kitchen, she surely would have been able to prepare something off the shelves in that kitchen. As far as I know the only thing my mother stocks regularly is lots of saffron for the kosher paella that she is always intending to make-the one with hot dogs instead of sausage.