How long do cheeses and fruits keep?
December 17, 2005 | 12:00am
Dear Tanya,
For Christmas, I’m planning to give away cheese and fruit baskets to my family, colleagues and friends. And maybe caviar to special friends. I want to do my shopping early but I’m worried that by the time the baskets are sent out and actually consumed by the recipients, the fruits will have gone bad already. What’s the storage limit for apples, oranges, bananas and cheeses? – Mary Anne
On my very first Home 911 column, a colleague sent me this question: how do I know if my cheese is rotting and not just molding like blue cheese? I said if he tasted and it made him want to puke, it’s rotten; if it made him want to pour a glass of Chardonnay, it’s blue. He didn’t find it funny.
Seriously, most commercial cheeses have an expiry date printed on the packaging. Just make sure they won’t expire in two weeks and you’re okay, otherwise your friends will think you got them for half the price since supermarkets tend to cut the prices just as the products are about to expire. For opened cream cheese, it’s two weeks; cottage cheese, up to 30 days; Swiss and processed cheese, three to four weeks. But here’s the thing, when my husband R. and I went to Amsterdam in March, we bought a ton of hand-made Gouda cheese that didn’t have an expiry date (they didn’t even have labels). The salesperson told us that we didn’t need to refrigerate the cheese if we weren’t going to eat it right away, but to keep it at room temperature and it could go as long as six months. The cheese was wrapped in some kind of wax like queso de bola, except the wax was yellow. The problem with keeping this kind of cheese at room temperature is that mold grows on the wax very fast (as in less than a week) even if it is unopened, perhaps due to the change in temperature, from freezing Amsterdam, which was experiencing near-record lows at the time, to hot and humid Manila. Mold on wax doesn’t mean the cheese inside is rotten – just wipe off the mold with olive or cooking oil on a paper towel. After we removed the mold, we put the cheese in the refrigerator and mold didn’t develop anymore. The cheeses lasted longer than half a year – and they were the best I had ever tasted.
Caviar tins, too, are labeled with expiry dates. Just a reminder when you’re serving it: it should be removed from the refrigerator only 15 minutes before, then put on a bed of ice and not opened until the last moment. Heloise advises that if caviar is over-salted, serve it with chopped hard-boiled eggs; if it is fishy, with chopped onion; if it is sour, with lemon juice. Caviar names (Beluga, Sevruga, etc.) indicate the kind of sturgeon that produced it, and you may find the label with the Russian word "malossol," which means it is only slightly salted.
As for fruits, they’ll last longer if you keep them in moisture-resistant wrap. Some fruits are already Saran-wrapped individually while smaller ones can be kept inside zip-lock plastic bags. Apples keep about a month; citrus fruits, two weeks; most other fruits, five days; dried fruit, six months. I’m sure you know that bananas, like potatoes, shouldn’t be refrigerated, and don’t forget to get unripe ones since it’s still more than a week to Christmas.
My biggest fault as a homemaker is that all too often, veggies and fruits spoil in our ref. My husband R. sometimes finds me standing there, looking at a package in my hand, trying to figure out what veggie it was that turned black and died on me this time. It always seems like a good idea to cook when you’re in a supermarket – that is, until you actually get home, put the stuff away and switch on the TV. I’ve had potatoes and onions that grew stems in the crisper, oranges that dried out as if an incubus had sucked the life out of them, lemons that shriveled and gave up, ginger that seemed to be losing limbs, and beans that just withered away at the bottom. Strangely, it’s sayote that has proven to be the hardiest. They’re like demented lovers – they just won’t go away until you use them.
And red, salted eggs, which are also a popular choice for a gift basket, how do you know when they’re rotten since they smell bad to begin with? Honey, you will know.
Dear Home 911,
I have a four-year-old son who loves to finger-paint; it’s our favorite family activity. While it’s now easier to buy lead-free paint than ever before, I want to make our paints together at home. I want to teach my son the importance of creating, of doing something himself rather than buying it from a store. Any safe paint recipes for me? – Janet
I love that you want to create paints with your son, and that you’re not preachy about wanting to take this extra step to teach him a valuable lesson. Heloise has this recipe from her book All-New Hints from Heloise: mix one-fourth cup of cornstarch with two cups of cold water and boil the mixture until it thickens. Then pour it into a container and add your desired food coloring.
The great thing about making paints with your son is that you can teach him about color combinations, too – how mixing two or three colors produce a totally different shade. Believe me, in a world where blue isn’t just blue, this will come in handy when he grows up. Take, for example, how colorists come up with names to describe their thousand swatches. It drives me crazy that one brand of paint has a totally different name from another for the same shade. I wish they would all just agree on the same names. For instance, a shade of gold is called "spun gold" in Ace paints and then "golden den" or something else in Valspar. Yellow isn’t just yellow, it’s now "yellow brick road," "daisy yellow," or "yellow heart." Don’t they ever run out of adjectives?
If you want to preserve the masterpieces of your young Picasso, spray them with hairspray. And if he likes to break his crayons just because snapping them in two makes a cool sound, wrap each stick with Scotch tape in the middle before giving them to him. And please, if you can afford it, get him the 120-color Crayola box – you want him to know what ochre is when he grows up.
Dear Tanya,
How do you get lipstick off a shirt? Fortunately, it’s my lipstick on my husband’s shirt. – Anette
Fortunately for him, you’re sure it’s yours. Otherwise, you’d be talking to a lawyer instead of texting to Home 911. Not to cast any doubt on the source of the lipstick – I do admire a wife for being a hundred percent sure it’s her lipstick on her husband’s shirt. Before washing the shirt, blot the stain off with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. You might need to do this several times and make sure you’re blotting it with a clean section of the paper towel or cloth each time.
Dear Home 911,
What is sun tea and how do you make it? – Orly
It’s simply tea with the bags steeped in cool water and literally warmed by the sun. Use the same number of tea bags as you would with hot tea. Put them in a pitcher filled with tap water and let them steep for several hours or until you get the desired taste. The pitcher is usually put on a table or counter outside, like your porch, then ice and sugar or honey are added before serving.
Home 911 answers questions about the home – cleaning problems, DIY projects, decorating ideas, home store resources, and things you’ve always wanted to know about but never had the friends to ask. Home 911 runs twice a month and will ask the experts on your behalf. For questions and suggestions, send e-mail to home911@pldtdsl.net or philstar_home911@yahoo.com or text 0915-4002565. Please include your first name/pseudonym when you text or e-mail. All questions will be answered through this column – Tanya is too lazy and too chatty to text her answers.
For Christmas, I’m planning to give away cheese and fruit baskets to my family, colleagues and friends. And maybe caviar to special friends. I want to do my shopping early but I’m worried that by the time the baskets are sent out and actually consumed by the recipients, the fruits will have gone bad already. What’s the storage limit for apples, oranges, bananas and cheeses? – Mary Anne
On my very first Home 911 column, a colleague sent me this question: how do I know if my cheese is rotting and not just molding like blue cheese? I said if he tasted and it made him want to puke, it’s rotten; if it made him want to pour a glass of Chardonnay, it’s blue. He didn’t find it funny.
Seriously, most commercial cheeses have an expiry date printed on the packaging. Just make sure they won’t expire in two weeks and you’re okay, otherwise your friends will think you got them for half the price since supermarkets tend to cut the prices just as the products are about to expire. For opened cream cheese, it’s two weeks; cottage cheese, up to 30 days; Swiss and processed cheese, three to four weeks. But here’s the thing, when my husband R. and I went to Amsterdam in March, we bought a ton of hand-made Gouda cheese that didn’t have an expiry date (they didn’t even have labels). The salesperson told us that we didn’t need to refrigerate the cheese if we weren’t going to eat it right away, but to keep it at room temperature and it could go as long as six months. The cheese was wrapped in some kind of wax like queso de bola, except the wax was yellow. The problem with keeping this kind of cheese at room temperature is that mold grows on the wax very fast (as in less than a week) even if it is unopened, perhaps due to the change in temperature, from freezing Amsterdam, which was experiencing near-record lows at the time, to hot and humid Manila. Mold on wax doesn’t mean the cheese inside is rotten – just wipe off the mold with olive or cooking oil on a paper towel. After we removed the mold, we put the cheese in the refrigerator and mold didn’t develop anymore. The cheeses lasted longer than half a year – and they were the best I had ever tasted.
Caviar tins, too, are labeled with expiry dates. Just a reminder when you’re serving it: it should be removed from the refrigerator only 15 minutes before, then put on a bed of ice and not opened until the last moment. Heloise advises that if caviar is over-salted, serve it with chopped hard-boiled eggs; if it is fishy, with chopped onion; if it is sour, with lemon juice. Caviar names (Beluga, Sevruga, etc.) indicate the kind of sturgeon that produced it, and you may find the label with the Russian word "malossol," which means it is only slightly salted.
As for fruits, they’ll last longer if you keep them in moisture-resistant wrap. Some fruits are already Saran-wrapped individually while smaller ones can be kept inside zip-lock plastic bags. Apples keep about a month; citrus fruits, two weeks; most other fruits, five days; dried fruit, six months. I’m sure you know that bananas, like potatoes, shouldn’t be refrigerated, and don’t forget to get unripe ones since it’s still more than a week to Christmas.
My biggest fault as a homemaker is that all too often, veggies and fruits spoil in our ref. My husband R. sometimes finds me standing there, looking at a package in my hand, trying to figure out what veggie it was that turned black and died on me this time. It always seems like a good idea to cook when you’re in a supermarket – that is, until you actually get home, put the stuff away and switch on the TV. I’ve had potatoes and onions that grew stems in the crisper, oranges that dried out as if an incubus had sucked the life out of them, lemons that shriveled and gave up, ginger that seemed to be losing limbs, and beans that just withered away at the bottom. Strangely, it’s sayote that has proven to be the hardiest. They’re like demented lovers – they just won’t go away until you use them.
And red, salted eggs, which are also a popular choice for a gift basket, how do you know when they’re rotten since they smell bad to begin with? Honey, you will know.
Making Your Own Finger-Paints |
I have a four-year-old son who loves to finger-paint; it’s our favorite family activity. While it’s now easier to buy lead-free paint than ever before, I want to make our paints together at home. I want to teach my son the importance of creating, of doing something himself rather than buying it from a store. Any safe paint recipes for me? – Janet
I love that you want to create paints with your son, and that you’re not preachy about wanting to take this extra step to teach him a valuable lesson. Heloise has this recipe from her book All-New Hints from Heloise: mix one-fourth cup of cornstarch with two cups of cold water and boil the mixture until it thickens. Then pour it into a container and add your desired food coloring.
The great thing about making paints with your son is that you can teach him about color combinations, too – how mixing two or three colors produce a totally different shade. Believe me, in a world where blue isn’t just blue, this will come in handy when he grows up. Take, for example, how colorists come up with names to describe their thousand swatches. It drives me crazy that one brand of paint has a totally different name from another for the same shade. I wish they would all just agree on the same names. For instance, a shade of gold is called "spun gold" in Ace paints and then "golden den" or something else in Valspar. Yellow isn’t just yellow, it’s now "yellow brick road," "daisy yellow," or "yellow heart." Don’t they ever run out of adjectives?
If you want to preserve the masterpieces of your young Picasso, spray them with hairspray. And if he likes to break his crayons just because snapping them in two makes a cool sound, wrap each stick with Scotch tape in the middle before giving them to him. And please, if you can afford it, get him the 120-color Crayola box – you want him to know what ochre is when he grows up.
Lipstick On Husband’s Shirt |
How do you get lipstick off a shirt? Fortunately, it’s my lipstick on my husband’s shirt. – Anette
Fortunately for him, you’re sure it’s yours. Otherwise, you’d be talking to a lawyer instead of texting to Home 911. Not to cast any doubt on the source of the lipstick – I do admire a wife for being a hundred percent sure it’s her lipstick on her husband’s shirt. Before washing the shirt, blot the stain off with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. You might need to do this several times and make sure you’re blotting it with a clean section of the paper towel or cloth each time.
How To Make Sun Tea |
What is sun tea and how do you make it? – Orly
It’s simply tea with the bags steeped in cool water and literally warmed by the sun. Use the same number of tea bags as you would with hot tea. Put them in a pitcher filled with tap water and let them steep for several hours or until you get the desired taste. The pitcher is usually put on a table or counter outside, like your porch, then ice and sugar or honey are added before serving.
HOME 911 Has A New E-mail Address! |
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
