This document provides several cooking secrets and tips for extending the freshness and life of common ingredients. Some tips include throwing a pinch of salt into milk cartons to extend their expiration date, using potato peels to remove excess salt from soup or fruit stains from fingers, checking eggs' freshness by whether they sink or float in water, storing bread with celery or using pieces of bread to keep other foods moist while baking, and lining drawers with paper towels to absorb moisture and prevent vegetable rotting.