Citrus: Great for eating -- and cleaning

Winter is when oranges, tangerines and grapefruits are harvested in Northern California. The end result becomes glazed oranges, dried oranges, orange juice, orange soda, lemonade, grapefruit juice and more. But best of all, we end up with a whole line of cleaning and deodorizing tools as a byproduct of good eats.

Lemon oil: Not lemon juice, lemon oil. Lemon oil is absolutely the very best glass cleaner we know of. If you have calcium build-up on your shower then you need lemon oil.

Simply use a piece of extra-fine steel wool dipped in lemon oil to clean a shower door that you currently can't see through because of the lime deposits. Once the door is clean, then wipe the surface down with a fresh coat of lemon oil and future lime deposits won't have a chance. By the way, we also use car wax to protect glass in the shower when lemon oil isn't available.

Lemon juice: Not lemon oil, lemon juice. Have a recipe that requires half a lemon and don't know what to do with the rest of the juice? Lemon juice is highly acid and is a great cleaning agent. Pure lemon juice is great for removing stains on many of the new solid surface countertops. Best of all it is nontoxic -- and you can even drink it.

Lemon Rind (Peel): Not lemon oil and not lemon juice. The peel is what we're talking about here.

Grab a lemon and rub the whole piece of fruit firmly between your hands. The warmth of your hands and the pressure you apply to the skin will extract lemon oil from its skin and your hands will smell wonderful. That's why a lemon rind is so absolutely perfect as a deodorizer for your garbage disposal. In this case it would not be a cleaner, but a deodorizer instead!

Drop the rind down the disposer and in no time the fragrance of lemon will permeate the air around your sink. Before using the lemon rind we mix a cup of water and a cup of vinegar (any kind) into an ice tray and make cubes. We mix the water in with the vinegar because the vinegar won't freeze on its own.

By the way, be sure to mark the ice tray so that the next batch of cold drinks doesn't end up with a surprise flavor. Drop the cubes down the disposer and the ice will coagulate grease and oil and at the same time will act as an abrasive, instantly cleaning the grease and grime in your disposal. We always follow this procedure with at least on half of a lemon rind. (You can use an orange rind if you like.)

Orange Everything: Orange oil, orange juice and orange rinds can be used for the same purpose as lemons. However, be careful when shopping for citrus-based cleaners at the store. Often companies will advertise their cleaner as "Lemon Cleaner" or "Orange Cleaner" when in fact the active cleaning ingredient is not citric acid at all, but some other chemical instead. This is important because citric acid is nontoxic and often its pleasant fragrance is used in combination with very dangerous chemicals.

So, when you purchase a product that says it is an orange or lemon cleaner, double-check to make sure what that the active cleaning ingredient really is. It's better to be safe than sorry.