Four Useful Household Hacks

Spray nonstick spray on the inside of your votive candle holders. Remaining wax will easily slide out. Use newspaper to eliminate odors in Tupperware, or the crisper bin of your refrigerator, or in a purse with lingering smells. Add a few drops of vodka and a teaspoon of sugar to make cut flowers last longer. Rub the cut edge of cheese with butter or olive oil to keep it from getting moldy.

Poor Americans

In American today, those classified as poor*:
99% have electricity, flushing toilets and refrigerator
95% have a television
88% have mobile phones
70% have car and air conditioning
*from TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2012

Five Handy Kitchen Tips

Keep your onions in the refrigerator. A chilled onion is easier to chop, and causes fewer tears.

If you use seltzer instead of tap water or milk, you get fluffier pancakes, waffles, and scrambled eggs.


To freeze berries, spread them on a pan or plate and freeze, then take out and put into freezer bags. That way they stay separate and not in one big lump.


Keep milk fresher for longer by adding a dash of salt into the carton right after opening it for the first time.


Take your eggs out of the refrigerator and let sit out so that when you begin breakfast the eggs are at room temperature. They cook better and make especially fluffy omelets.  For other dishes, eggs separate better when cold but whip better when warmed.

What's in a Name, Refrigerator

From the Latin re frigerare - to make cool again. The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748. Between 1805 and 1902 when Willis Haviland Carrier demonstrated the first air conditioner, many inventors contributed advances in cooling machinery. In-home refrigeration became a reality in 1834 with the invention of the cooling compression system by the American inventor Jacob Perkins.

The absorption refrigerator was invented by Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters from Sweden in 1922, while they were still students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. It became a worldwide success and was commercialized by Electrolux. In 1923 Frigidaire introduced the first self-contained unit. The 1950s and 1960s brought in technical advances like automatic defrosting and automatic ice making and, as of 1955, 80% of American homes had a refrigerator. The Chinese cut and stored ice in 1000 BC.

See Through Refrigerator

Here is a great idea I just saw on the web. In order to save opening the door a hundred times a day, simply push a button and the door turns transparent so you can see what is inside before you open the door. 

The idea is to save energy by keeping the door closed until you want to take something out.