Aahzimandious

I stumbled across castelveltrano olives in a specialty foods store in pike place market in seattle washington. They were beautiful perfect little grannysmith apple looking olives, bright green, apple shaped, crisp and firm in texture, mild butter taste similar to green luques, low salinity... not very salty at all!! All in all they were the best olives I have ever had bar none and I immediately decided I had to have them in bulk if possible. I found this source: http://shop.vendio.c...7/?s=1264409762 I ordered several pounds of olives and unfortunately they were no wheres near as good as they had been the previous time... admittedly they froze during shipping so they were mushier then previous but also the color was duller and the taste was much brinier and lacked that crisp buttery goodness that I loved so much. So does anyone know of another source other then worldeats that supplies proper Castelveltrano olives? thank you in advance to all who respond!!

I am currently using a 13" lodge cast iron skillet owned by my roomie on which I sanded down the cooking surface. The problem being that the cooking surface is not only rough but uneven so most of the oil/fluids run off to the outer edge of the pan. It would take more work then I really want to invest to get the thing properly set up. I am looking into either nickel or raw cast iron not enamel... Hoping to find a source of a decent cast iron pan with a flat cooking surface in the size of 13+ inches for doing pancakes/hashbrowns/fried chicken anything I need a large cooking surface for.

I love cooking with cast iron but hate the lodge cookware!!! I have a couple old wagner skillets that I love due to there relatively light weight and smooth cooking surface whereas the lodge pans are heavy and very rough. I have sanded down some lodge pans but they never come out as nice as a wagner or a griswold. I want a 13" + size skillet with a smooth cooking surface IE none lodge but the prices on the old stuff is prohibitive due to collectors. Last one I saw was around $220 for a 13 inch wagner with lid. Is Olvida worth the money? Is the cooking surface smooth or is it just a lodge pan covered in nickle? Anyone know of a company that makes better cast iron pans then lodge that doesn't coat it in something like Lecreuset or Olvida? Thanx in advance to all who bother to respond!

I have never used tagine before but I have decided I have to give it a shot. Is the clay tagine really worth the extra effort involved? I don't mind a little extra care if I like the results (Im a carbon steel knife junky) but the le creuset is attractive do to the fact that I would not need a heat diffuser when using it on the range and I could use it at higher heats and under the broiler if I wanted to. So any opinions on this delima?

On the websites they always say for restaurant use only. Why is that? I got to use a vulcan stove with the dual ring high btu output burners at a previous job and Iv never gotten over how satisfying it was to cook on em. Iv lately gotten enthralled with the idea of woks but Im saddled with a 60's era electric stove that is the antithesis of a good wok stove. For a while Iv looked at new stoves but I cant find any with high enough btu outputs (25k or more) for reasonable prices ($1000 or less). So I started looking on line and Iv found several 2 burner vulcan ranges 50k btu available for dirt cheap ($400 or less). This isn't bad considering a new wok burner alone often runs $800 or more and that is usually only one burner. So would it be an awfull idea to buy one o these things and hook it up???? I want a decent range so bad!!!