Guest Post From The Daily Green's Jeff Yeager
It's official: I've become my grandmother. I realized it the other morning when I opened the door to our freezer.
That icy vault was packed to the brim. But -- in the finest tradition of my Grandma Yeager -- it wasn't filled so much with leftovers, like you'd find in most household freezers. You see, my Grams had a few deep frozen secrets. She knew about weird stuff; weird stuff you can deep-six in the freezer and maybe save some money in the process.
* Candles: Keep your wax candles in the freezer and they'll burn longer. It's especially good for slim table tapers that normally burn very fast.
* Batteries: A number of studies have shown that storing batteries in the freezer helps them retain their charge longer. This is less true for alkaline batteries (freezing extends their shelf life by only about 5%) than it is for NiMH and Nicad batteries often used in electronics. Keeping NiMH batteries in the freezer can boost battery life by 90%.
* Wine Cubes: Lots of people already keep alcohol in the freezer, when you have a little leftover wine from dinner, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. "Wine cubes" are perfect to use in making stock and other cooking.
* Wooden Voodoo Mask: A carved wooden mask I picked up at Mardi Gras last year is showing the telltale pinholes of a woodworm infestation. As they know in the furniture refinishing business, placing a wooden item in the deep freezer for a couple of weeks will kill woodworms and their eggs.
* Pantyhose: Like Grandma Yeager, I don't wear them, but my wife sure does. She swears that if she keeps her pantyhose in the freezer, they're less likely to run and they last longer. (I just can't imagine how she gets up enough courage to slide into an icy pair every morning.)
And you wonder why I have issues?
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