Baking Soda

A guest at a Center City hotel, officials say, sparked an anthrax scare yesterday - causing seven people to be quarantined for several hours - because he uses baking soda to brush his teeth. The guest, whose name was not released, was not charged in the incident at the Windsor Hotel & Residential Apartments, 17th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, but he was later taken into custody because of two outstanding warrants against him in Georgia on fraud charges. Fire Department hazardous-material crews descended on the hotel shortly before 9 a.m., along with police and fire officials and city Managing Director Philip R. Goldsmith, who pronounced the all-clear around 12:30 p.m. "The good news is that, based on our testing, there is a far greater likelihood that this is baking soda than anthrax," Goldsmith said.

It cleans. It deodorizes. It strips paint. It removes crayon marks from walls. It can be used as a dentifrice or a shampoo. It makes bread rise. It soothes the pain of indigestion. It buffers dialysis fluids. It encourages cows to eat more (and thus produce more milk). It reduces lead in drinking water. It prevents acid rain. Does this sound like some marvelous new invention? It's not. It's plain old baking soda . . . the same baking soda your grandmother used - and probably, her grandmother, too. What's new about baking soda - also called sodium bicarbonate or bicarbonate of soda - is that it is being packaged and/or used in some new ways.

Cooks don't often give it much thought, but there are differences between baking soda and baking powder. Chemically, baking soda is the more basic of the two and forms the base of baking powder. It's almost impossible to explain one without discussing the other. Baking soda, also known as bicarbonate of soda, has some common household uses. It's often used to settle stomachs and to absorb food odors in the refrigerator. People even use it as a tooth cleanser. Some cooks add it to cooking liquid to make the color of green vegetables more vibrant.

Dear Polly: My grandmother used to talk about using a homemade toothpaste made out of baking soda. Do you have a recipe for this? - Alison I don't have any recipes for making an actual toothpaste, but you can use plain baking soda to brush your teeth. Just put a little baking soda in a dish or in the palm of your hand, dip your toothbrush in it and brush away. The baking soda doesn't have any special tooth decay-fighting ingredients such as fluoride, or the new ingredients that fight plaque formation, but thoroughly brushing with it will clean your teeth gently, removing food particles and bacteria - and freshen your breath.

Which came first, Armand Hammer or Arm & Hammer? Arm & Hammer by a nose, but it doesn't matter anymore. Armand Hammer, the 88-year-old industrialist, Sovietologist and patron of the arts, struck a deal yesterday that puts him in league with the people who make and sell Arm & Hammer baking soda. Officials at Armand Hammer's Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and Church & Dwight of Princeton, N.J., which has been making Arm & Hammer products for 126 years, said the joint venture between the two companies with the oft-confused names is strictly coincidental.

Your great-grandmother probably soaked her yellowed table linens in sour milk to whiten them. Perhaps the child in you recalls seeing stale bread wiped over the wallpaper at Grandma's house to absorb oily dirt. Certainly we're all familiar with club soda as the first and safest choice for surreptitious stain removal at parties and in restaurants. And everyone must know someone with a box of baking soda in the refrigerator. These are just a few of numerous cleanup tricks that rely on food products.

First ham. Now biscuits? An overturned tractor-trailer spilled 50,000 pounds of hams onto Interstate 95 last week. Yesterday, a truck spilled baking soda on the eastbound Pennsylvania Turnpike. Police closed the right-hand lane at Exit 27, the Willow Grove off-ramp, after the truck carrying 43,000 pounds of soda overturned at 1:56 p.m. The crash backed up traffic for a mile and added about 15 minutes to the eastbound turnpike commute until the evening rush ended, according to the SmarTraveler traffic information service.

The mayor takes up arms against graffiti. Trenton's Douglas Palmer demonstrated a power cleaner based on baking soda yesterday at Cadwalader school. The city also declared a crackdown on vandals.

Q. When I come across a recipe that calls for baking soda, I keep wondering whether it's all right to use the same baking soda I keep open in the refrigerator to absorb odors. Anna DeBenedetto St. Petersburg, Fla. A. A spokesperson at Arm & Hammer advises that you not use the baking soda you leave open in the refrigerator because, as you say, its purpose is to absorb odors and this is what it does. It can impart an undesirable taste to your food. As for baking soda's potency, Arm & Hammer says that baking soda does not deteriorate with age, but remains stable.

Homicide detectives searched the city's Fairhill section yesterday for a street-corner drug dealer who shot and fatally wounded a Delaware man Monday during a soured drug deal. Larry Duncan, 29, of New Castle, was shot once in the face through a car window at the corner of Franklin and Cambria Streets about 2:30 a.m. Monday when he complained that the white powder he was being sold was baking soda, not cocaine, detectives said. Duncan's companion, Phillip Maier, 21, also of New Castle, drove the car away and flagged down a police officer.

A recipe for moist, flavorful banana bread is a find. A half-dozen of them, all in one book, is a discovery. And if they all come together quickly with wonderful results, well, that's a gold mine. Maida Heatter's Cakes (Andrews McMeel) isn't the kind of book that captures a baker's imagination. There are no pictures, no fancy ingredients, no special techniques - only recipes. Each begins with a brief introduction, and each is backed by Heatter's reputation as the doyenne of desserts.

COCONUT OIL CARROT CAKE 2 cups sugar 1 cup extra-virgin coconut oil, melted 4 eggs 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup coconut flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon mace 1/2 teaspoon ginger 4 cups finely grated carrots 2 cups finely grated apples, preferably Granny...

PUMPKIN-BUTTERMIK PANCAKES 3 cups flour 3 tablespoons sugar 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt 3 cups buttermilk 1/2 cup milk 3 eggs 3 ounces butter, melted 2 cups Homemade Pumpkin Puree (see below) Butter Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar together in a bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, milk and butter; stir just until ingredients incorporated. Fold in pumpkin. Melt butter in medium-hot skillet and pour some batter in. Cook on one side till batter firms up and bottom browns; flip to brown other side.

Q: When I line-dry my laundry, the towels end up stiff. Are there any tricks to keeping them soft? A: You're smart to line-dry your clothes. Among home appliances, only refrigerators and washing machines use more electricity than dryers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Although the airy scent is a plus, line-dried towels can feel stiff. Try using less detergent, especially if you soften your water. Or add 1/4-cup of white vinegar or baking soda to the wash (the vinegar smell dissipates during the rinse cycle)

MINNEAPOLIS - What do you get when you mix baking soda, olive oil, and borax, with a little white wine on the side? A green cleaning party. Dubbed the 21st-century equivalent of a Tupperware party by Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE), an environmental and health organization, the parties are a way to gather and create green, safe, and cheap cleaning products. The notion resonated with six women who met recently in south Minneapolis to combine food, drink, and camaraderie with a commitment to green cleaning.

MANY conventional cleaning products don't just remove dirt. They also leave behind chemicals that can be dangerous to breathe or touch, and which can contaminate soil and water once washed down the drain. For a less-toxic alternative, take an old-fashioned approach to cleaning: Use gentle soaps and basic kitchen staples, such as baking soda and white vinegar. You'll have a fresh, clean house - and save money while you're at it. DIY cleaners Consider your idea of what "clean" means.

We accidentally grew a seven-pound zucchini in our backyard. I checked the garden before we left for vacation and it was very small, not even close to picking size. But when we returned, it was huge. So huge, in fact, that my son wanted to know how much it weighed. He ran upstairs, weighed himself, and then weighed himself with the zucchini. He bounded back down the steps, and proclaimed: "Mom, it weighs seven pounds!" We all had a good laugh, whereupon my husband, realizing it was the approximate weight of our daughter at birth, cradled it like a baby.

I SPLIT A Starbucks espresso fudge brownie with a friend recently, and here's how we described it: "Oh, my heavenly yum!" My taste buds felt treated, but I spent too much money and way too many fat grams on that chocolate concoction. I craved a healthier version of this dessert that I could bake at home to save calories and cash. So I started tinkering with a recipe I created several years ago to amp up the chocolate and tone down the fat. If you're a calorie-conscious chocolate addict like I am, you know that portion control is key. That's why I decided to make cookies instead of brownies.

TOP OFF A MEAL with Black Forest cheesecake and you might want to stay in the dark about the damage it could do to your diets. With more than 330 calories and 18 fat grams per serving, it doesn't fit into most calorie budgets. So I lightened up this rich dessert, shaving off 34 percent of the calories and slashing 51 percent of the fat. You can have a serving of my Black Forest cheesecake for 219 calories and 8.9 grams of fat. KATHY'S BLACK FOREST CHEESECAKE For brownie layer: 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 tablespoon canola oil 2 ounces semisweet chocolate chips 3 tablespoons packed Splenda brown sugar blend 2 tablespoons Splenda (granulated for baking)

Q. I am having a party for the World Series. We are hosting about 25-40 people (not sure how many will show up) and I would like it to be fun and easy. Can you tell me some fun foods we can make to make this special? Thanks for any suggestions and for your attention. When planning a Phillies party, you have some pressure to live up to Citizens Bank Park, which was voted as Best Ballpark Food in a survey of Food Network viewers and voted No. 1 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as America's most vegetarian-friendly ballpark.