So after stumbling around the web and deciding I needed a Romertopf and persuading a friend to get me one for Christmas, I stumbled into eGullet and found some postings by Paula W. on curing clay pots. That led me to her book, and now I'm excited to try some serious clay pot cooking. Till now, I've been a cast iron partisan--I bake all my own naturally leavened bread, for which I use 2 lodge dutch ovens. I also have a lodge skillet, a couple of small le creuset sauce pans, and a big enameled cast iron DO from Costco. I'm curious what all my soups (mostly veg, some fish) & beans will be like in clay. So far I've used the Romertopf once for bread, which came out okay but stuck a bit, and I'm reluctant to use it for fish, lest I never again be able to use it for anything else, so I clearly need at least one more clay pot. The question is, which one? What is the most flexible--oven to stove, bread to stew? I'm thinking maybe a large La Chamba casserole (I entertain a lot, so it needs to be big), because it seems like it would be great for soups/beans/roasting/AND casseroles. Do you think that's true? Both money and space are greatly limiting factors (that's why probably just one for now), but if I like it enough, at least one of my 3 cast iron DO's could go. I've read the Wolfert intro where she describes the different pots, but I'm still not sure why I'd want a glazed one, for example, or why stoneware instead of the La Chamba. Would only a glazed one (perhaps a cazuela) keep me from needing a separate fish pot? Would any of these be better than cast iron for bread, and if so, why? Wolfert at one point says to use an UNsoaked Romertopf for artisan bread, and at another point (for an olive oil bread) seems to use a soaked one: again, why? And finally, do I need something like the La Chamba skillet? It looks like that would be a lovely replacement for my cast iron skillet (for eggs, pancakes, sautéed veg), but again, I'm not sure about benefits/drawbacks. Many thanks!
