Little tricks of the trade

SO.. I am making supper tonight and I go to open a bottle of pasta sauce (what, you think I make my own from scratch?). It's the standard glass jar with metal lid. I don't exactly have super strength monster hands so when I was a teenager I came up with an idea. Why not vibrate the lid off?

So I took out a knife and with the back side of the blade, I strike a series of sharp taps on the rim while rotating the jar. Presto, I can then open the jar with ease. It works EVERY time. The trick is sharp taps which create micro vibrations in the lid and thus release the vaccumm seal. I found out later that my idea, isn't exactly original but I honestly figured this out by myself. As opposed to other methods I've seen, there is almost no chance of injury due to prying or forcing of the lid and this only takes a few seconds.

So, how about you? Do you know any simple little tricks around the house that you would like to share with others?

I usually hit the rim hard enough to dent the lid, letting the air in. I guess it's the same idea.

There's a guy at the office who pretends to be utterly incompetent at the things he doesn't want to do so he can get out of doing them. He usually succeeds.

if you are having a fish fry, and cooking hush puppies for a lot of ;people, don't try to spoon them individually... use a bread board, flatten the hush puppy mix to about 1/2", score with a knife and roll them off the board... a whole lot faster...

If you use a wick-style portable humidifier to make the interior of your house more comfortable, you can clean the wick with plain old white vinegar. Just place the wick in a tub higher than the wick, pour in a cup of vinegar, and add hot water to cover the wick. After 20 minutes, or when the bubbles stop rising, rinse the wick and place it back in the humidifier.

With vacuum packed glass jars, it's usually sufficient to hold it at ~45% angle with one hand and palm slap the bottom of the jar, sharply, with the other hand. This creates a "wave" in the jar that usually breake the vacuum seal.

If you use a cool mist humidifier to make your home more comfortable, CLEAN the humidifier weekly. Use white vinegar first to remove scale (lime) build up. Then put about a quarter cup of regular household bleach in the base of the humidifier and add hot water to a level above the ordinary fill line. let sit for 15 to 20 minutes, pour out the bleach water and rinse thoroughly. When working as a Respiratory Therapist some 35 years ago, I helped care for a young boy who came in with some weird respiratory infection. His mom brought in the cool mist humidifier she ran in his bedroom. The therapist who filled it was shocked to find the water turned pink when she filled it with sterile water. It was full of any number of nasty microbes and the microbes were being flung into the air and inhaled by her child.

I use boric acid in my humidifier. Boric acid is an antiseptic so it will retard the growth of micro organisms. It is a solid at room temperature and is water soluble. Since it is a solid it does not evaporate with the water and thus remains in the humidifier and filter during use. When you add new water it mixes in the new water so it keeps working.

I use about a tablespoon in my humidifier.

Boric acid is available at many pharmacies and in the nursery dept. of many home improvement stores (it is also used to kill roaches and silverfish).