Working in S. Fla around 93 or so, I was burned by a restaurant owner for 2 wks pay. About 175 hrs. I'd gone on vacation and came back to no check. My name wasn't on the schedule any longer and I knew he was playing me as he accused me of leaving him high and dry (high anyway) during a busy week and somehow rationalized that into not needing to pay me. This went back and forth for a couple wks. I called the labor board who told me it was a right to work state, that I could be let go w/o reason and that I should be glad I only lost 2 wks pay and no, they wouldn't investigate it further as they were overworked and understaffed.

His pride and joy was a 62 Caddy convertible that he parked next to the restaurant. A sweet cherry vintage ride. There was an Oriental market just down the street. One sweltering sunny morning (wks later, as a dish like this is best served cold) I stopped and purchased a bottle of Vietnamese fish sauce. I drove by the restaurant and saw the caddy w/the top down. Quick stop, and poured the contents on the carpeting of the car and let the sun ferment it even further.

I was told that he had to remove all carpeting and couldn't imagine why anyone would do such a thing. Never got paid but did get justice.

Charcoal will help remove odors. Put a couple of bowls in your trunk and close the lid for a couple of days.

My Mrs. Grass' soup overflowed recently. For quite awhile I wondered why the hell it smelled like gas in there and the soup still wasn't boiling. Oops. But boy that soup tasted great, considering it could have been my last meal. Hence the "TURN OFF THE OVEN" post-it on the wall placed not-so-discreetly by Mr. Pie.

I love the aromas of frying onions and bacon while they are cooking. The next day, permeating the house, they aren't so pleasant. Also, the smoke detector went off almost as soon as I started cooking the bacon.

It appears I have a kitchen ventilation problem (no range hood, no ventilation fan). Long-term solutions for venting to the outside are going to be expensive and take a while.

Any ideas for short-term solutions? Opening a window is not an option because there are storm windows. I tried boiling some vinegar but it didn't help much.

I there a door to the outside near the kitchen? Have a box fan? Two story place?

Take the box fan and place it in a far room's open window, crack the door near the kitchen to create a positive air flow thorughout the structure. Run it while cooking and for 10-15 minutes after.

kenji wrote:I there a door to the outside near the kitchen? Have a box fan? Two story place?

Take the box fan and place it in a far room's open window, crack the door near the kitchen to create a positive air flow thorughout the structure. Run it while cooking and for 10-15 minutes after.

All the windows have storm windows on them, the old-fashioned kind that have to be removed from the outside, so I don't know if I can open any windows before spring. There is a door I could prop open, and I do have fans, but that's a chilly solution in the winter. It might be the best I can do, though.

If it was very important to be able to cook without lingering odors all Winter I would probably take one of those wooden storm windows and install a triple track to be able to open it, or leave a Summer screen on one. Access to fresh air and moving air from outside, inside, sounds like the only thing that will work to me.

We still have some meals where there's lots of frying and food stinkiness, and some times smokers are here in the house at these meals, and opening an upstairs window, putting the box fan in it, and cracking some windows downstairs is the only way to make it bearable.

Well, we've figured out how to open the window in the kitchen (the storms on that room do open out), so that's something. I guess I have a choice between warmth and fresh air.

Fry up some chicken!

LAZ wrote:I love the aromas of frying onions and bacon while they are cooking. The next day, permeating the house, they aren't so pleasant. Also, the smoke detector went off almost as soon as I started cooking the bacon.

It appears I have a kitchen ventilation problem (no range hood, no ventilation fan). Long-term solutions for venting to the outside are going to be expensive and take a while.

Any ideas for short-term solutions? Opening a window is not an option because there are storm windows. I tried boiling some vinegar but it didn't help much.

It's not a cheap solution, but consider investing in a Lampe Berger. It's a flameless fragrance burner that dates to turn of the century (19th-20th century) France and is advertised as neutralizing--not masking--odors. Although these days it's most commonly used with scented oils, they also sell an odorless oil that apparently was used in French hospitals 100 years ago to help get rid of the unpleasant smells.

chgoeditor wrote:It's not a cheap solution, but consider investing in a Lampe Berger. It's a flameless fragrance burner that dates to turn of the century (19th-20th century) France and is advertised as neutralizing--not masking--odors. Although these days it's most commonly used with scented oils, they also sell an odorless oil that apparently was used in French hospitals 100 years ago to help get rid of the unpleasant smells.

Wow!

http://www.lampeberger.us/the-products/ ... ral-,31504
http://www.maisonbouquet.com/index.php/ ... ented.html

(other retailers exist, it looks like)

leek wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:It's not a cheap solution, but consider investing in a Lampe Berger. It's a flameless fragrance burner that dates to turn of the century (19th-20th century) France and is advertised as neutralizing--not masking--odors. Although these days it's most commonly used with scented oils, they also sell an odorless oil that apparently was used in French hospitals 100 years ago to help get rid of the unpleasant smells.

Wow!

http://www.lampeberger.us/the-products/ ... ral-,31504
http://www.maisonbouquet.com/index.php/ ... ented.html

(other retailers exist, it looks like)

Thanks for including the links (and sorry I didn't!). I actually got my burner at Wiggleyville pet store of all places (3337 North Broadway). I buy oils from them periodically, too, but I've actually found it cheaper to buy the oils on eBay. (You can pick up burners there, too.)

chgoeditor wrote:It's not a cheap solution, but consider investing in a Lampe Berger. It's a flameless fragrance burner that dates to turn of the century (19th-20th century) France and is advertised as neutralizing--not masking--odors.

Have you found it to be effective?

LAZ wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:It's not a cheap solution, but consider investing in a Lampe Berger. It's a flameless fragrance burner that dates to turn of the century (19th-20th century) France and is advertised as neutralizing--not masking--odors.

Have you found it to be effective?

Honestly, I use it more for to create an an aroma in a room, not to neutralize odors.

Stinky cooking odours constitute a crime, Italy's supreme court rules

Cooking may be a national passion, but Italians who allow the pungent aroma of a simmering pot of pasta sauce or a vat of deep fried fish to waft into a neighbour’s home are committing a crime, the country’s highest court has ruled.

In the best traditions of legalese the world over, the Court of Cassation in Rome even came up with a term for the offence – “olfactory molestation”.
...

I believe that there are also areas in the US where it is a crime to allow outdoor barbecue smells to travel to a neighbors property.

lougord99 wrote:I believe that there are also areas in the US where it is a crime to allow outdoor barbecue smells to travel to a neighbors property.

When Honey 1 opened up on Western Ave. in Bucktown, they had this very issue with some of their neighbors.

Received a gift of homemade kimchi from my Korean-born co-worker's mom. Two containers: cabbage and radish. Put them in the office fridge and forgot to take 'em home that night. Next day? Gone. Our office manager said "it smelled of death" and threw it out. Hard to blame her, but damn.

stevez wrote:

lougord99 wrote:I believe that there are also areas in the US where it is a crime to allow outdoor barbecue smells to travel to a neighbors property.

When Honey 1 opened up on Western Ave. in Bucktown, they had this very issue with some of their neighbors.

Being bothered by the smell of smoking tips is unfathomable to me.

God, I miss Honey1 being down the street.

I think the smell that stands out to me is at a restaurant I used to cook at where one of the principals made menudo every morning for breakfast while drinking grappa. This was not a Mexican restaurant, and I have nothing against the dish, but the combination of menudo stewing away first thing in the morning and grappa in the air was lethal to say the least.

For a little over a year in the 80's I lived across the street and three flights up from the (long gone) Carson's Ribs on Niles Center in Skokie. On nice summer days when the windows were open, there was no denying the choice of ribs for dinner. Sure, not in the same class as Honey 1, but there's something about pork smoke.

My Dad loves smoked sprats. He has learned the rest of family does not enjoy the strong odors as much. Once he just casually left them in the refrigerator. I made quite a stink about the refrigerator wafting in smoked fish.

He now wraps any leftover sprats in three layers of plastic.

Regards,
Cathy2

Panasonic is releasing a deodorizing hanger that’ll rid your clothes of that grilled meat smell

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker ... ease-japan

Cathy2 wrote:My Dad loves smoked sprats. He has learned the rest of family does not enjoy the strong odors as much. Once he just casually left them in the refrigerator. I made quite a stink about the refrigerator wafting in smoked fish.

He now wraps any leftover sprats in three layers of plastic.

Regards,
Cathy2

Here is a good one and it doesn't smell bad. Take several slices of rye sourdough bread and fry them lightly on the pan (with little butter). Why they are chilling up open the can of smoked sprats and place one or two fishes(drain that oil) on one side of the bread. Open a jar of sour pickles, cut several long slices and place each slice next to the fish. Piece of parsley or cilantro or green onion or all of them find their home right above the newly married fish and pickle. Then eat it as a nice Russian or Baltic appetizer. Cheap too!

Lenny,

How do you feel about the sprat pate that comes from the same source? As much as Dad likes sprats, he doesn't especially like the pate.

If you do like it, how do you serve it?

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:Lenny,

How do you feel about the sprat pate that comes from the same source? As much as Dad likes sprats, he doesn't especially like the pate.

If you do like it, how do you serve it?

Regards,
Cathy2

I imagine pate should by slightly cheaper than sprats, but...
I agree 100% with your dad on the pate subject and it should never be consumed by true food experts like your dad and myself.
Does he still remember the taste of so called "Georgian bread" made in Niles, USA ? Tell him that we are working through multiple layers of Evanston bureaucracy to start something edible (without sprats, pate and Georgian bread) again. Hopefully, it will be a real bomb, I mean yum.