Every cook has probably had to deal with burning food in a pan at some point. My daughter did it the other day with some tomato soup, made with milk of course. Ugh. We soaked it overnight to no avail. So I went online and found this page on eHow.com about cleaning burned pans. Wow! The baking soda and vinegar step did the trick and the pan, a nearly 25 year old Revereware pot, looks as good as new again.