1. Open Some Windows
It is one time when an interior draft may be welcome, even on a cold day. Fresh air helps any home smell good, and a strategic breeze can carry cooking odors right out the window.
Opening windows in the front and back of your home do wonders, providing there is a breeze outside, to begin with.
2. Shut Some Doors
Try confining cooking odors in a part of the house where the kitchen is located. You can also shut the kitchen door, but doing so means that we can’t catch a breeze to blow the odors outside.
3. Cook Outdoors
Weather permitting, we fry outside in the court area off our kitchen. If the wind is trying to waft the greasy steam back indoors, you shut the exterior door and also nearby windows which overlook the court. And, leaving a deep fryer to cool outdoors completely before putting it away eliminates a fried, oily odor in the cupboard.
4. Brew Some Coffee
Grinding coffee beans and brewing coffee are easy ways to fill a home with a pleasant aroma that can override less pleasant odors. For a change, try adding cinnamon, nutmeg or other spices to the coffee. This spiced coffee recipe will steer you in the right direction.
5. Make a Simmering Potpourri
A simmering potpourri is an easy homemade air freshener. Bring a small pot of water to a gentle simmer, and add any combination of the following to the water:
- citrus peels
- cloves
- allspice
- nutmeg
- a cinnamon stick or ground cinnamon
Allow the potpourri to simmer for an hour or longer, adding water as necessary.
6. Leave out a Bowl of Vinegar
A small bowl of vinegar set next to the stove is very useful in reducing odors from frying fish and other foods. Leave the vinegar out for several hours. If the fried fish smell has gone well beyond the kitchen, try soaking several pieces of bread in vinegar, place them in individual bowls, and set out in adjacent rooms to work overnight.
7. Burn Some Incense or Light Scented Candles
Scented candles can be effective and soothing. Incense tends to be more powerful, but we find that some incense, no matter how high in quality, can quickly induce a headache. For that reason, be careful that what you select agrees with you.
8. Burn Toast
There’s nothing wrong with a kitchen smelling like food. But if a food odor becomes unpleasant, food chemists say the fast solution is to burn some toast. That’s right: Burn a slice of bread in the toaster. That will absorb the lingering odor. Just make sure the bread doesn’t catch fire. Of course, now you have a kitchen that smells like burned toast, but this odor at least won’t linger long.
9. Knook Out Fridge Smell with Hot Lemon Water
First, take all the food out and put it in a closed cooler with a bag of ice so you won’t have to worry about it. Unplug the refrigerator.
Squeeze a lemon into a cup of water, throw the peels in too, and heat the liquid on the stove. Pour this hot lemon water into a bowl, put the bowl in the fridge, close the door, and wait a few minutes. This will start cutting the odor but, more important, it will also loosen the food accumulations on the walls and shelves, making them easier to clean away.
10. Hands Smell Like Fish? Try Lemon or Sugar
Whether you’ve handled fish in the kitchen or out on the water, here’s a sure-handed way to get rid of that fishy odor: Cut a lemon in half and squeeze each half over your hands. Rub your hands together and rinse.
If there’s no lemon handy, pour a teaspoon of hand soap onto your palm. Add a tablespoon of sugar to the soap and rub the mixture thoroughly over your hands. Then rinse. The combination of soap and abrasion from the sugar will remove the odor.
11. Remove Fish-Smell with Stainless Steel
Some chefs swear by stainless steel as a fish-smell remover. Rub your hands on your stainless steel sink or fixtures and then wash your hands as usual.
12. Exercise Some Patience
As a quick fix, you may be tempted to spray air fresheners or perfumes around the home, but you don’t recommend them; who wants to breathe chemicals from the around them? A little patience will go a long way, and with time and some of the methods above, your home will soon smell inviting again.
Taking care of cooking smells on you is fairly easy: keep long hair tied back so it won’t catch odors when working over the stove; change your clothes before company comes or before heading out after preparing a meal; take a shower if necessary.
