A full-time housewife teaches you new uses for alkali powder (soda ash)

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This post was last edited by crjgood on July 8, 2012, at 16:08. I still remember that in my childhood, baking soda was used to make steamed buns. Most people in the northern regions prefer wheat-based foods; every household would make steamed buns. After the dough had risen, a bit of baking soda water was added and mixed in. The resulting buns were white, fresh-tasting, and had a slight sweetness—they were absolutely delicious. However, if too little alkali is used, the mantou becomes hard and small, and has a slightly sour taste. If too much alkali is used, the mantou turns yellow in color and has a somewhat bitter taste. However, later on, as economic conditions improved, people naturally stopped making steamed buns by themselves. Most people would simply buy them from outside whenever they wanted to eat them. Only when the kitchen got dirty would they use some soda ash (washing soda) to clean things up. To be precise, it’s only in the past couple of years that I discovered there’s another use for baking soda. Currently, I have my own family, so all domestic duties, big and small, fall on me. Besides being able to cook well, I also have to do the washing and cleaning. Take dishwashing, for instance. Previously, I always used dish soap to wash the dishes. However, if I used too little of it, the dishes wouldn’t get properly cleaned; on the other hand, using too much made me worry that they wouldn’t be rinsed clean enough, which could potentially harm my health. Amid my worries, I suddenly thought of soda ash (pure alkali). I bought the baking soda and put it in a small-mouthed plastic cup. Whenever I needed it, I would pour some baking soda onto a sponge used for washing dishes, and then scrub the wet dishes with it. Surprisingly, the grease on the dishes disappeared quickly. In the end, simply rinsing the dishes with clean water made them completely clean. In particular, tea cups that are frequently used for drinking tea often have a thin layer of tea residue on them; this doesn’t look very pleasing. However, once you wipe them with baking soda, the residue disappears instantly, and the tea sets regain their shiny, like-new appearance. So now, I basically use baking soda instead of dishwashing detergent. After all, it’s convenient and quick, and it doesn’t leave any residue on the items being washed.