Feeding Your Other Senses: Some Unusual Uses for Foods

Patty Canedo is a chef in Palm Beach. She writes frequently about her kitchen exploits in her column, Half-Baked.

Photo by sun dazed

​We all know that food can do more than just nourish us. If you work in the food industry, you're bound to unlock some of its awesome power. You may get bored and begin messing around, stumbling on to some benefits that wouldn't normally occur to you. Either way here's some fun and handy ways to play with your food. These tips come right off the line.

Sight:

- Fight pink eye by rinsing your eye out with (cold) herbal tea until it clears up. (This little tip was prescribed by my medical entourage.)

Smell:

- A small boiling pot of water with a cinnamon stick and some cloves makes any open kitchen smell like fresh apple pie.

-  Lighting the tip of a rosemary stick fills a dining room with a soft woody frangrance better than any incense you can buy.

Touch:

- Even the most skilled cooks burn themselves. Rub a lemon on the burn, and the acidity will neutrilize even the most painful ones. Tomatoes work just as well, but a lemon is cleaner and smells better.

- One uncooked spaghetti noodle makes one great cake tester.

- It's no accident there's a box of cornstarch stored in the freezer...too help the guys get through the grueling summer months.  

- Recipe for a deep conditioning treatment: 1 egg, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp honey, and the juice of one lemon. Mix and rub in your scalp (double for longer, thicker hair). Wrap your hair in a towel and let sit for 10 minutes, then wash as normal.

Trip to the salon=$$$. Trip to the fridge= pennies.

Finally, I could speak very intelligently about all the nutrional and medicinal benefits of all kinds of foods and herbs. Studies, medical findings, its a subject fraught with interesting and amazing information. So I'll end with something you might not read about:

Taste:

-  In a kitchen, you have to be sure to cut extra when it comes to pineapple. Guys devour it wanting to retain its sweet flavor. In other words, a moment on their lips for tasty enjoyment on someone else's lips later.

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