"cleaning" news and stories

You blackened the bottom of your favorite pot. What to do?

Plastic food storage containers invariably turn red. One tomato based dish hastily stored in Tupperware is enough to leave a permanent scarlet scar.

The red never seems to go away, even after multiple trips through the dishwasher. However, if you wash your plastic with Plastic Booster, the red disappears. It's just that easy. Captain Plastic Booster to the rescue!

Plastic booster was sold at our local grocery store and the plastics in our home were so happy. When they stopped selling it - I have no idea why they would do such a crazy thing - our plastics again looked sad and red. Luckily, Plastic Booster is available at drugstore.com.

Check it out if you want to see the magic for yourself.

Somehow I never seem to load the dishwasher correctly. I've given up trying to learn. No matter how I load it, my husband comes after me and re-loads it. Luckily for me, he doesn't seem to much mind this arrangement. Then again, I bake him cupcakes every week.

If your spouse is like me and doesn't load the dishwasher in the "correct" way, Kathy Maister of Startcooking.com offers some tips on how get them to mend their ways without causing a fight.

Kathy suggests, "By the third time they do it 'not quite the way you think it should be done', gently offer suggestions - with reasons. No-one likes being criticized, but if you use it as a form of education 'By the way, did you know WHY they say you should.......?' you may get away with both your goals: getting it done right and keeping your relationship strong!"

Kathy also explains exactly what the right way is to load a dishwasher. This may settle the debate you've been having about what's better, top or bottom (get your mind out of that bottom rack).

Does your spouse do the dishes wrong? What do you do about it?

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All five of the pepper mills you see pictured above are mine. That might be more pepper mills than the average household requires, but I like my kitchen gadgets and I like having a spice option for every necessity. That includes having coarse or fine grind pepper whenever I want it without futzing with adjustments on a single grinder. The two in the middle came my way when my great-aunt Flora downsized her kitchen several years back (that's also how I acquired my very functional 25-year-old Cuisinart). The tarnished silver one is an ancient Peugeot, that after some thorough cleaning (although I don't think I've polished it in years), has the most amazingly smooth action.

Because of my experience with that particular pepper grinder, I was really surprised yesterday when a friend asked me to recommend a new pepper mill for him. He said that he had a 30-year-old Peugeot that wasn't working well anymore and he wanted to try treat himself to a new grinder. I told him that if he really wanted a new grinder that he should head over to Fante's, which has all of their mills loaded with pepper and available to be handled before purchase (your local kitchen supply store may do the same thing). However, I also suggested he give that old Peugeot a cleaning before giving up on it. While he may still indulge in a new grinder, he sent me an email tonight saying that his old one is working so much better. Success!

photo by Marisa McClellan

How can someone who puts out such a fun food mag put on such an unbearable TV show?

I want to like Rachael Ray, the TV show. I really, really do. Honest. But it's just an annoying hour to me. Maybe it's because I'm a guy. One minute Rachael will be teaching us how to make some cool quick meal with pasta and vegetables, and then five minutes later she'll be talking about women in abusive relationships or how someone can organize the shoes in their closets. It just doesn't work for me. (And there's also the whole thing with her voice and bubbly personality, which I can take on 30 Minute Meals but when it's an hour every day...). But it's really popular, so maybe I'm not the right audience.

But Every Day With Rachael Ray? That's a great little magazine. It has a bunch of recipes that you feel you can actually cook (unlike some mags), quick guides to eating in various cities, tips on shopping, tips on buying wine, interviews. It's well-done. If there's one quibble I have is the whole "celebrity fridge" feature in the back of every issue. It's kinda funny to see what celebs have in there, but do we have to have some quiz about what they have? On the same page where we can see the answers?!? It seems to be a quiz made for people who find the TV Guide crossword difficult.