Please Tell Me How to Keep Kitchen Odors at Bay!

"Ugh! What a stink!" This familiar refrain is not due to odors from sewers/drains or pungent chemicals in the laboratory! The disagreeable smells that forms the topic of this conversation emits from your kitchen. The odors stems from exotic recipes, fish, meat, and spicy foodstuffs.

So, how do you go about "cleaning" your kitchen atmosphere?

A major culprit in this case is poor ventilation, so let the windows of your house remain open for good air circulation.

How about opting for an air purifier that boasts carbon filters and HEPA? All the chemical fumes, smoke and odors are bound to vacate your kitchen in a jiffy. Or maybe you prefer the simple exhaust fan?

If your kitchen stove boasts of a vent, turn it on. The smoke, odor molecules and oil particles will discover that they cannot inflict much damage.

If your only intention is to replace nasty kitchen odors with great aromas, try out any of these myriad products available in the market-aromatic/air deodorizers, air/room fresheners, aromatic candles, fragrant reed diffusers, and so on.

Well, the kitchen air is clean! It's time to divert your attention to the countertop and the stove. Now, you may be the most careful person in the world, but your kitchen spots can be very stubborn. With all the frying, sautéing, roasting, etc., that you do on daily basis, food and oil spattering are bound to occur, paving way to unwanted odors into your kitchen.

Keep a sponge or rag ready at all times. A dip into a de-greasing dish detergent and some careful wiping of the stove, countertop, and backsplash areas should do the trick. Once through, rinse these surfaces with a damp towel. The kitchen walls, ceilings, cabinets, windows and furnishings too cry out for attention all the time.

Of course, you could bake pies, pastries, cakes and bread to mask unpleasant kitchen odors. You could brew delicious coffee, but it's not a very practical solution, since you cannot bake every single day.

Okay, here are some home-made fragrances that you can try out-

Fill a small pot with the following-equal parts of water and vinegar, plus one or two slices of a citrus fruit. Let it simmer on your stove for two hours or so. The evaporating vinegar will neutralize the odor molecules that are nestling on your kitchen surfaces. Even after the job is done, leave the solution in the open for a few hours.

Substitute different ingredients for the same process-water, a cinnamon stick, a few slices or peels of citrus, rosemary, and a few cloves. You may add more water if the level reduces.

A third combination is water, plus fragrant herbs and spices.

The above-mentioned tips should suffice to keep your kitchen free of unpleasant odors. Good ventilation, air purifiers and exhaust fans, home-made fragrances, and commercial products are the tools one would need for this purpose. It's imperative to ensure that this important room in your house remains "neat and clean" almost every day.