Chris Hennes

It scratched the surface, it just didn't matter. The scratches are very fine, and the enamel covers them up quite well. I don't quite follow what you mean about the base: it definitely is metal: some variety of steel I think, based on its weight.

I didn't replace any parts that were custom: the feet are just bolts ( don't recall the diameter, but fairly large. 3/8", maybe?). I used a drill with a wire brush to remove the enamel: worked like a charm, and made a gigantic mess. Make sure you wear a dust mask! For the lube I just used a standard "white-grease" type, picked up at Lowe's. I didn't bother filling any dings or scratches, but I imagine Bondo would do the trick nicely.

Yes and yes. I completely disassembled it, ground the bulk of the original (now yellow) enamel off, re-enameled it with appliance enamel (white, silver and black, for the various parts), lubed everything, and re-assembled. I actually need to take it back apart one of these days and add a new piece of felt to the sliding assembly: I damaged it reassembling, so the sliding action is not as smooth as I would like. ETA: I also replaced the original non-grounded power cord with a grounded one, and put a new switch on it.

The contestant list was just announced: definitely some top-notch chefs in there: Rick Bayless Wilo Benet John Besh Graham Elliot Bowles Michael Chiarello Michael Cimarusti Wylie Dufresne Elizabeth Falkner Hubert Keller Christopher Lee Ludo Lefebvre Anita Lo Tim Love Rick Moonen Nils Noren Lachlan Mackinnon Patterson Cindy Pawlcyn Mark Peel Douglas Rodriguez Michael Schlow Art Smith Suzanne Tracht Jonathan Waxman Roy Yamaguchi (Any typos are mine - sorry!) The host is Kelly Choi, and the judges are: Gael Greene James Oseland Jay Rayner

OK, I admit, I hadn't actually tested cooking without fat—I always add fat to the pan, nonstick or no. And sure enough, slkinsey is right (again), an egg cooked without added fat in my freshly-seasoned cast iron skillet (dry of any surface fat) stuck, whereas, of course, the egg cooked on the teflon-coated pan only stuck where the teflon had worn away. Moral of the story: fat is good . And you need it to cook in cast iron.

Actually, after applying the knowledge gleaned above about seasoning, I took both my un-sanded pan and my sanded pan and did the the high-heat grapeseed oil seasoning steps three times. The surface smoothness is now a) awesome and b) indistinguishable between the two. The polymer layer that formed is thick enough that it smoothed right over the roughness of the unsanded lodge pan. To be honest, until I got serious about seasoning my cast iron I had always figured that the "practically nonstick" claims were a bit bogus, mostly wishful thinking on the part of the nostalgic cast iron owners. Turns out I was completely wrong: these pans are really actually honestly nonstick. Like, probably more non-stick than my well-used mostly-still-teflon-coated pans. Amazing. Better living through chemistry...

OK, chemistry was never my strongest course (obvious from my mislabeling carbon as a molecule!): I am trying to understand precisely what is meant by "mechanical" adhesion to the surface, at a molecular level. So there are no bonds between the iron atoms and the polymer molecules? Is the idea that some of the polymer chains get tangled up or "wedged in" microscopic crevices in the pan's surface? How strong is this adhesion?

A few years ago I ran across a cheap chef's jacket while out shopping, and picked it up on a whim. Note that I'm certainly no chef, or even a line cook, so I have no professional reason to wear one of these, let alone while cooking at home. I wore it once. It felt... silly. Any home cooks out there who regularly wear a chef's jacket at home? Why do you prefer a chef's jacket over a regular apron? Is it more practical in your home kitchen, do you like the look? Does it make you feel like a professional chef?

Honestly, if the criterion is "bragging rights," the best place I can come up with is Morimoto, i.e. owned by a big-name celebrity chef. Sit at the bar, get the omakase. It will impress his friends because there is at least a chance some of them will have heard of it, and it will impress him because the food is good and sitting at the bar is fun.

I just picked up a five pound bag of fresh masa (no, I don't know if it's truly fresh, or reconstituted masa harina, but that's a discussion for another topic). Now, last time I made tamales with this stuff I ended up using something like one pound total, and that made as many tamales as I could make by myself at one time. Until I can find a volunteer labor force to assemble a larger quantity of tamales, I am looking for things to do with the rest of the masa. It's labeled "Masa para tamales," but it's not "preparada": it's only got corn, water and cal on its ingredients list. Can I use it for tortillas? What else?

OK, the one with the balls I think I am familiar with, and the balloon whisk. But what's a "Danish Dough Whisk" or a "Gravy Whisk"?

Do you generally toast the mustard seeds before grinding them, like you would do with other spices? Or does it depend on the application?

OK, so we've established that there are a TON of types of whisk out there. But how many do you actually need? Is this a case where, like knives, most home cooks can get by with two or three, whereas a pro might need more? Or does an adventurous home cook "need" two dozen different whisks? I own four: small, medium, large, and a large nylon (for my nonstick pans). My collection will never beat andiesenji's, but are there others that I should think about acquiring ASAP? What am I missing out on?

OK, oven is turned up now. No smoke point on the can, but I bought it for the purpose of very high-heat sauteeing, so I think it will be OK. I'm astonished by the amount of misinformation about this subject on the web: in particular, a lot of sites actually advise against using polyunsaturated oil, while others claim the oil doesn't matter at all, it's all about the carbon molecules. For the record, here's what McGee has to say about seasoning cast iron: Note that in this case we want oxidation and polymerization. And it certainly sounds to me like there is more going on than just bonding the carbon molecules to the iron.

Looking back over this topic and the other topics that reference cast iron cookware there seems to be some inconsistency as to advice given re: the actual best way to season a pan in terms of the nitty-gritty details of it. Right now, I am: Using grapeseed oil (very high in polyunsaturated fats) Putting a thin coat on the piece Heating the piece in a 250°F oven for 3-4 hours Removing from the oven and letting cool Repeat N times Is there anything I should change? In particular, what is the optimal time/temp in the oven? How do you know when one round in the oven is done? Is it necessary to let the piece cool before repeating the steps? I know there are zillions of ways to achieve "good enough" over "time enough" but in terms of the best seasoning in the least amount of time, what is the best practice (bonus points for citing your sources ?

Interesting, I didn't know that I should be looking for polyunsaturated fats. According to this site I should then be looking for (ranked from best to ok): Safflower oil (74%) Grapeseed oil (71%) Walnut oil (70%) Sunflower oil (63%) Corn oil (51%) Vegetable oil (48%)

Thanks, that's very helpful. I presume that there is no reason to stick with veg. oil, is there? Right now I have it in the oven with some duck fat because I had just a little bit leftover.

OK, in what is perhaps the dumbest cast iron question ever: what is the stuff supposed to look like when it's properly seasoned? Black, I assume? Is it shiny? Matte? I ask because I took it into my head the other day to take one of my new Lodge pre-seasoned pans and go at it with a power sander to smooth out the inside bottom of the pan (they are very rough and I wanted to experiment... stuff is pretty cheap, what's the worst I could do?). At any rate, I now have a smooth-bottomed, metal-colored (i.e. not black) cast iron pan. I filled it with veg. oil and popped it in the over for a few hours, cooled, wiped out, etc. Repeated this three times. Then I fried up a grilled cheese with lotsa butter, and some bratwurst, again in lots of oil. Well, the bottom is still basically metal colored. Does it just take a long time to build up that black coating?

Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse-style white bread is my go-to sandwich bread, especially for PB&J and grilled cheese. It's firm enough that it doesn't tear or squish too much when spreading peanut butter, and it stands up to having a crisp "grilled" exterior better than softer styles of bread. But recently I noticed a packaging change: they are emphasizing the "softness" a lot more. So, that had me a bit worried, and sure enough, when I tried one of the newly-packaged loaves, it seemed softer. But was it really? Is the change just in the packaging and in my head, or is it really softer than it used to be? Do I really need to find another go-to bread?!?

Previous Top Chef Seasons on the eGullet Forums: Season 1: San Francisco Season 2: Los Angeles Season 3: Miami Beach Season 4: Chicago Season 5: New York Well, season five practically just ended and rumors are already flying about season six. Bravo hasn't announced where it's going to be held yet, but Toby Young has apparently tweeted about filming in Seattle. Las Vegas has also gained traction in the rumor mill. Considering the amount of discussion in the Season 5 topic about how little of New York was used in the show, I'm not sure it matters. Casting has begun: Any eGullet members auditioning for the show this year?

I think that your suggestion of replacing the cream with beer is reasonable: I'd use a beer with big flavor, and I'd shy away from the sweeter styles. Personally I like lager with my brats, so I'd be inclined to try using something like Sam Adams. Though you could go local and use Pig's Eye pilsner: seems somehow appropriate in this context.

With most spices I only keep the whole spice on hand: coriander, fennel, cumin, etc. But looking at my spice rack I see that I have both Colman's powdered mustard and mustard seeds. I never really gave it any thought, I just have both and use them when a recipe calls for one or the other. But is it necessary, or even desirable, to keep powdered mustard? Does it lose its potency faster than the whole seed (as with other spices)? Is it hard to grind because of the tiny, smooth spheres? Do you have both?

In today's CIA ProChef SmartBrief they've got a link to an article in The Oregonian about boneless leg of pork, which got me thinking about the fact that I've currently got a bone-in leg that could be deboned. They suggest various roast recipes: Roast Leg of Pork With Cumin and Fresh Herb Crust, Fresh Pork Leg Roast With Herb Gravy, and Cider-Brined Pork Leg With Brandy and Brown Sugar Glaze, Anyone have any go-to recipes for this cut? Most so-called "fresh ham" recipes are for the bone-in ham: do you treat this one differently? Anything unusual that can be done with it, besides just roasting?

Marzipan can also make a quite classy covering for a carrot cake: just put it over the top of a thin layer of traditional cream cheese frosting. I like to do the top of the cake with marzipan and the side with toasted hazelnuts.

And finally, the last confirmation: I baked up a loaf of the yeast-addition-omitted dough and it was effectively indiscernible from the other loaves. This is great: now I can stop going through yeast at such an astronomical rate (the problem with baking bread almost every day...).