How do I get rid of the food smells?

[Fairy]

I hate cooking, but I'm doing it more now so that DS doesn't live solely on chicken nuggets. We have a brand new oven and nuker, and the fan has five speeds. I use it. However, now just as before, god forbid I brown ground beef or make anything remotely Mexican or use a spice of any kind, the whole house stinks for days. We're talking all the way up the stairs and into the master bathroom. Everything. Whole freakin' house. I go into other peoples' homes, and they don't have that smell, and they cook way more often than me. I've done the fabreeze and the lysol thing. It helps, but is there anything else I can be doing? Or that I need to stop doing?

[DebbieJ]

Does your exhaust fan vent to the outside? Or does it just recirculate?

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03
Breastfeeding After Reduction is possible! www.bfar.org

http://www.bfar.org/members/fora/style_avatars/Ribbons/18months-bfar.jpg

[JTsMom]

Put out a couple of dishes of plain white vinegar. It absorbs odor really well. I always do that when I fry something, and it works like a charm. Give it a few hours to do it's thing. At first, you'll smell the vinegar, but that smell won't hang around, I swear.

[Fairy]

It definitely vents to the outside. Which is another reason I'm baffled.

[Fairy]

Ok, I'll try this for sure!

[tny915]

I just bought an air purifier for the sole purpose of removing cooking odors. DH and I are constantly burning meat in the oven and smelling it for days. We've been opening all the windows upstairs and downstairs, but obviously you can't do that year-round. It's times like those I wish I had a closed off kitchen where I could just shut the door and confine the odors to one place.

I got this one, based on Amazon reviews and Consumer Reports, but it's still shipping. I found it at Bed Bath & Beyond and used their 20% off coupon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000050B5M/dealtime-kitchen-20/ref=nosim

[bostonsmama]

Yes, and you can do double duty and mop your floors with vinegar (and H20 mix) and get the same benefit of it absorbing odors in your kitchen. Baking soda works equally well at riding smells from area. Also, clean the grease filter in the fan vent to make sure grease isn't trapped in there and preventing malodorous air from being removed to the outside. Also check the outside vent pipe to make sure bugs or birds haven't built a nest that is preventing proper air flow/suction from riding your house of the cooking smells.

Burning scented candles helps, as does running the heating or cooling unit with a new 3M air filter and scent packet.

L

[cmdunn1972]

Another trick I heard is to boil stick cinnamon on the stove.