I was away from home for a few days and returned to find that my husband had done spring cleaning in the pantry. It certainly needed it.
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Baking soda has many uses other than for baking. I was reminded of several when I read the April 2005 issue of Real Simple magazine.
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My sister, the egg-dyeing queen in our family, spends the better part of Holy Saturday coloring dozens of eggs for our family’s annual Easter egg hunt.
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What’s the difference between braising and poaching? Is grilling the same as barbecuing? How does one steam something? Here are a few brief descriptions for you.
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To remove the odor of garlic from you hands, sprinkle salt on a wedge or slice of lemon and rub your hands with it. After eating boiled crawfish, lobsters, crabs or shrimp, rub your hands with plain breadcrumbs or crumbled Saltine crackers. Messy, but it works.

It won’t be long before late spring tomatoes will be either appearing on the market or in home gardens. It’s best to keep the tomatoes at room temperature rather than in the refrigerator. Putting them on a sunlit windowsill will cause the tomatoes to lose some of their nutrients.

Granulated sugar is the most commonly used sugar. We use it to sweeten our coffee and tea, as well as for baking. This sugar is highly refined and pours easily. There is also superfine sugar that dissolves quickly. It’s most used for making cakes and frostings.
But there are other types of sugar.
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Kneading dough when making bread develops the gluten-induced elasticity of the dough and distributes the gas bubbles produced by the yeast so that the bread develops a close, even texture, becoming supple and smooth.
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If the acidity in tomato-based foods upsets your tummy, add chopped carrots to the mixture to reduce the acidity.

Vinegar has many uses. For instance, when cooking cauliflower, add a teaspoon to the boiling water to keep the vegetable white. I also remember my mother icing down a bottle of vinegar whenever we went to the beach. Cotton balls drenched with the vinegar relieves sunburn.
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