Due to a minor cooking accident yesterday, (you don't leave beef goulash to simmer on an electric stove and then go to sleep, my dear!), Lionel and I discovered a miraculous cleaning agent!

Imagine my dismay this morning when I found Ruby's pot covered in a thick layer of burnt goulash, and no amount of scrubbing was going to make it disappear. I tried soaking the pot in hot water. Nothing. I got Lionel to bring down a bottle of vinegar from Amar (apple white wine vinegar?? what the heck! what kind of wussy vinegar is that, Amar? Only 6% acidic!), boiled it in hot water and soaked the pot in it. Didn't do much good besides stinking up the kitchen. Tried asking around my landing for baking soda but surprisingly nobody bakes! Searched my room, but the only thing acidic enough was orange juice... which I still wanted to drink. So eventually I went up to the upper gallery to buy a can of diet coke (no, not because I'm a health freak but because it was the only kind of coke left!).

By that time Lionel had managed to scrub out most of the burnt goulash with elbow grease, but some bits were just clinging on stubbornly. So we covered the remaining stubborn bits with coke and watched it fizz and bubble for awhile. Sometime later, after a hilarious webcam and msn audio conversation with mao-mao and indirectly with Lu, went back out to wash the pot and voila! The stains were so much easier to remove. Thanks to Coca Cola! Just a pH of 2.8!

Now imagine what that does to your insides! Mmmm... cola burn...