Forget fancy, overpriced organic cleaners. You can do plenty with just a squeeze of citrus.

They call it stainless steel. But your once-shiny knives, bowls and pots end up with greasy, yellowy splotches. What gives? And what to do?

Do you need to turn the faucet on and off when you're working with raw meat? Here's how to keep it clean.

As I flipped past Maxim, Shape, and Better Homes and Gardens, a new mag caught my eye the other day - Clean Eating. Come again? I flipped through it for a minute or so, but couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what "clean eating" was. The opposite of 'dirty eating?' (see picture at right for an example of what I imagined 'dirty eating' to be). Perhaps a way of eating without spilling anything on yourself. Sadly, this intrigued me.

So I went home and consulted my trusty ol' Interweb, and there it was: the unofficial definition of clean eating: "Consuming food in its most natural state...it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to..." My eyes glazed over at this point (and by the way, why does every new diet define itself as a "lifestyle?" Can't anyone just eat anymore without defining themselves within a food "lifestyle?"

Anyway, I digress. From what I can tell, "clean eating" is just another way of saying "eat normal-sized portions of healthy, low-fat, fresh foods." Which everyone already knows. And like every di - er, lifestyle - there's a list of stuff to avoid (refined sugars, anything fatty, alcohol - y'know, all the tasty stuff) and a "seven-day meal plan" to get you started. Oh, and the best part: the token "Before and After" pics of a woman in a muumuu and then that same woman, 200 pounds lighter and "much, much happier." Because only thin people are happy, dontcha know.

Eh, I dunno. Maybe I'm jaded - and I'm sure Clean Eating could be a good source for new healthy recipes - but healthy eating and portion control are simply that. Stop trying to slap a label on it turn it into a book, movie, stuffed animal, or lifestyle. Just eat right, right? And have a beer or a cupcake once in awhile. Tell them Ellen said it's okay.

I'm embarrassed to admit, but ever since I was little, I've had a thing for deliciously-scented bath products. I've never been a make-up person, and I'd take slacks over a skirt any day of the week. But give me a passion fruit-guava bath and shower gel, and I'm all over it. Working at a bath and body store in high school only compounded this addiction.

Because I'd like to think of myself as a connoisseur of food-scented bath products, I can't be bought off with any old strawberry bubble bath or vanilla body spray. Heavens, no. I spring for the unique, the out-of-the-ordinary, the extraordinary. Exotic fruits and unusual pairings make for some fantastic soapy products. Go ahead, take a peek, and then pick up some confectionery concoctions just in time for Valentine's Day. But I have to warn you: when the bottles are empty, the withdrawal symptoms set in, so make sure you stock up.

The worst thing about cooking is, without question, the cleanup. Once you have cooked and eaten your fill, the last thing that you want to do is do the dishes. The process seems daunting when you don't have a dishwasher, and somewhat less so if you do have one, but it's called a "chore" because it is one.

Chip, at Cook Think Blog, put together a brief guide to loading a dishwasher properly, with tips that can really help you make the most out of each wash. Before you laugh, keep in mind that having a system makes doing the dishes go much, much faster than it ordinarily would. You'll spend five minutes loading because you know where everything goes, versus 20 minutes trying to figure out how to cram everything in. Here are a few to start with:

• The used ends of forks and spoons should be pointing up, maximizing exposure to the water, while knife blades should point down.
• Plates should not be loaded by size, again to maximize exposure to water.
• Bowls should go on the top rack, not the bottom.

Though the South Beach, Florida store in question was closed for renovations this past Sunday, some mothers gathered at a Starbucks and held a "nurse-in" to protest the expulsion of a woman named Nicole Coombs from the store. Coombs claims that she was asked to leave for breast-feeding her 4-month old son. The Starbucks manager, however, maintains that Coombs was asked to leave for changing her baby's diaper on one of the tables in the cafe.

Coombs states that the store manager asked her to leave while she was breastfeeding. She said she would leave as soon as she was done, because she was so outraged that she did not want to remain in the store. Then, according to Coombs, she proceeded to change her baby's diaper. She does not deny that she changed the baby on the table where people ordinarily eat. Now, the store manager says that he did not say anything to Coombs about breast feeding, which is perfectly acceptable in the store. He contends that he approached her as she changed her baby on the table and asked her to stop. When she refused, she was asked to leave.

For years, chefs, food writers and even food scientists have said that cutting boards made of wood will absorb bacteria, and plastic ones will allow bacteria to flourish on the surface, lurking in each tiny cut. Each material has been declared worse in turns. Do plastic cutting boards really harbor more bacteria than wooden ones? Are wooden ones worse?

It looks like the food scientists at Cook's Illustrated have debunked this food myth, because according to their tests, the answer is "no". They collected the used cutting boards of several of their staff members, but found little bacteria on them. The boards, two wooden and two plastic, were then taken to a lab where they were inoculated with one drop of solution containing millions of bacteria. The bacteria were allowed to sit on the boards for 40 minutes, but after washing the boards with hot, soapy water, fewer than 100 bacteria from the original sample remained on each type of board.

While bacteria remained on each board, the amount was small and nearly equal for both materials. This shows that it doesn't matter what the board is made out of, but how you care for it. After each use, particularly if raw meat has touched the board, cleanse it with warm, soapy water. The FDA recommends sanitizing your boards in a solution of 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon water.

We've all done it before--eaten at our computer. Perhaps we sneak a bagel in at work, or a muffin, or even a crunchy oatmeal bar. But have you ever tried cleaning your keyboard after years of crumbs have accumulated? It's not a pretty sight. TechRepublic has an article nominating the worst foods to eat while typing at your computer. Some of the winners were jelly, seeds, pasta, and flake bars. I'm sure there are even worse things to eat over a keyboard than what they missed, like chips.

At the end, they talk about some tips to clean your keyboard, including canned air, vacuuming, and using a dishwasher. What are some of your techniques to get out those pesky little crumbs?