HERB - Baking Soda

[Carl/Anne Adamczyk]

While on the subject of baking soda...

To safely clean drains:  put a pot of water to boil.  Gently pour some
baking soda down the clogged drain, encouraging gently with the bowl of a
spoon to go past the strainer if necessary.  Follow with approximately 1
1/2 cups of white vinegar.  This is an endothermic reaction, use caution.
 After the fizzing has stopped rinse with the hot water you first put on
to boil.

The Quick Silver silver cleaning tray is a money making variation on what
an old jeweler taught me.  Boil some water.  Put a tablespoon of baking
soda in an aluminum pan.  When the water has boiled, pour into the pan
with the baking soda.  Place your silver items to be cleaned on the
bottom of the pan.  They must come in direct contact with the aluminum. 
Rinse the item in   warm water and buff to a brilliant shine with a soft
cloth.  You may notice a faint, unpleasant odor.  That is the silver
oxide from the tarnish being released by the chemical reaction with the
bicarbonate of soda solution.  This is a much safer way to clean silver,
both for the silver and your skin.

For Yvette,  the wok owner:  Baking soda should be safe on your wok.  As
far as taking the finish off of cast iron pots, my cast iron frying pan
was silver when I bought it.  After seasoning and years of use, it has
attained the much sought after blackness.  If I use any abrasive to clean
it the blackness comes off and the silver comes through and  I must
re-season it and start all over again.  

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998 11:47:19 -0600 "Donna Walden" <dewalden at flash.net>
writes:
>Please pardon this _very_ late response to this post...
>
>> One other thing that Baking Soda is good for: cleaning off burned-on 
>gunk
>> in pots. Put 1-2 inches of water in the bottom of the pot, and bring 
>it to
>> a rolling boil. Then add a few tablespoonfuls of baking soda and 
>allow to
>> effervesce -- you will begin to see bits of gunk floating up in the
>> bubbles. 5-10 minutes of this will remove a good deal of the gunk 
>and
>> loosen the rest. Dump out the water and scrub out with warm running 
>water
>> and a scrubbie. Repeat if necessary.
>> 
>> Warning: this takes the finish off cast iron pots!
>
>Do you know if this is safe to do with a wok?  I would love to find 
>something to 
>remove the buildup in ours!
>
>Yvette Royd
>Bryn Gwlad
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