SLB

It's the oil the catfish was fried in!

I saw the follow-up post about not bothering with these again; but just in case, I offer my beloved late cousin Eileen's instructions about how to make store-bought eggrolls taste like restaurant eggrolls: "fry 'em in fish grease". For what it's worth, that woman could slay in the kitchen.

Yes, La Vara.

I do, too.

Duh! Thank you.

@ElsieD If it's ok, would you PM me the recipe for the Sparkling Gingerbread? If it's not, I totally understand. I have someone moving on into dementia who LOVES gingerbread but hates life right now, and I am hoping to visit her for her birthday next month. With FOOD.

About a decade ago I had to change my diet dramatically, drastically lowering the carbohydrate and increasing the protein. When I say "had to", I mean to address a fairly radical change in my basic metabolism combined with disastrous iron-anemia. I feel very fortunate that I like meat quite a bit, and for the time being can afford it in large volume. Also, I basically like almost all the foods, so switching to lower-starch vegetables wasn't particularly challenging. But I was really sad at the time. It might've been the fact that I had lived 40 years in the full privilege of eating to taste and taste alone. (**generally, my taste is a basically healthy diet of meat and vegetables and a pre-1980-style amount of starch, so it's fair to say that my taste ran coincident to many of the basic dietary guidelines). So I was pouty about having to, you know, bring discipline to a place in my life where I had been going with my heartbeat. There certainly are worse and harder areas where life gives this to us. Anyway, where was I? Yes, I was sad. I now have to get the protein down, whether it's really where the deliciousness-action is at on the plate or not. It can feel . . . boring. People make all kinds of wondrous dishes that are not meat-heavy, and I'm always angling for more protein. And -- did I mention that it's expensive? Good gawdalmighty did my budget change. The thing I'm terrified about ever having to give up is coffee. My mother had to give up caffeine at 65, and I think I've mentioned it here: it was traumatic for her, and really hard to watch. She'd had a life of survival and not much pleasure, and her coffee was an important highlight. She gave up the cigarettes with much less sorrow than the coffee, and she had smoked Kools-straights for forty years. But she did it. That woman had a will the likes of which I've never encountered since she left us.

Or, as @gfweb suggested: voodoo. Seriously -- here's hoping the metal experts weigh in. It seems so odd! For what it's worth, my mother's Wagner Ware Magnalite also greases up good on the bottom. However, it comes right off with Comet.

Sure does seem like it from here.

@rotuts I tried your proposed test, and did not notice any residue. Maybe it accumulates so slowly that it will take a few days for me to be able to actually observe anything. The bottom of the pan felt a little moist, for what that's worth. Here are pics of the flame on the heavy-use eyes. And, I see here that the bottom of my moka pot is all carbonized, too. Hmm. I've had this thing for 2.5 years. Unlike the skillets, though -- this thing is never washed or anything like that. It gets, you know, wiped down occasionally. But no soap touches the mokapot, ever. Maybe there is just too much grease in my house, everywhere. It is possible!

They have never been used outside. No idea. It started to accumulate around 2012 or so, which I attributed to the laziness which has emerged with my middle age. Until two days ago the whole exterior looked black like the remaining small patches in the photo. But, now that I think of it, that is when the Bluestar was put in. Hunh.

Sigh. It literally did not occur to me to read the ingredients!! I figured it was a lye-alternative: "SAFE FOR ALUMINUM" !? Oh, well. I guess I should've left the skillet . . . carbon-on. We'll see how it cook up, rusticplus charm and all.

I had a mind-bogglingly delicious meal last week at the NYC resto of this cuisine, and so I finally broke down and bought the cheapest used copy of this book (I've been eyeing the used market on this item for a couple of years): It was sold by the Hawaii Library Friends, and came wrapped. Not fancy-wrapped, just wrapped in plain blue paper; I was totally charmed. And am looking forward to digging in.

Yes, this is the all-clad brushed aluminum, if I recall correctly. Which is why it didn't go into the lye with the iron pans. Carbon-Off claims to be specifically safe on aluminum: But, perhaps not in the copious quantities that I poured on.

After cleaning my cast iron, I have turned to my all-clad mc2 skillet, which I had let the bottom get to solid black, up to the rim. I let this happen once before, and put it into the neighbor's self-cleaning oven. I later learned, I believe from @boilsover, that this is a Very Bad Choice with clad pans. The finish was totally dulled, but the pan seemed to work fine after. But I let the situation get horrible again after about 7 years including 3 in my pandemic-pit of a kitchen. Two rounds of carbon-off later, most of the carbon is off. But the metal has a whole new texture! The bottom of the other MC2 pan which I purchased at the same time (2002!), but which rarely gets used being a 6qt sautee pan, doesn't look anything like this. It still looks like that brushed-finish-thing they were doing back then. I need to quit messing over these good pans . . . .

So, this is my early feedback on the Cannon. It certainly does produce an ENORMOUS amount of pepper per turn; and has more grind settings than seem relatable. Also, it is very heavy and solid-feeling, in a lovely, two-hundred-dollar way. But that smooth body, with no grooves or indents, no angling or nothing? Well. More than once I thought it was going to slip to ruin in some rolling boil of liquid. This seems like a distinct disadvantage as compared with the Weber and the Craig Lyn, which are designed with (what looks like) some grip-effect. You definitely want to be thoughtful about greasy hands with the Cannon. Second, if you're holding the thing at a tilt, then the high volume pours out in a stream, and lands in a pile. Not a problem in soup, or if you're measuring out some pepper. But not what you want when you're dealing with a piece of meat, or eggs. It scatters brilliantly if you are holding the thing vertical. Not a big deal -- the point was to be able to achieve volume. I'm not mad. I'm just sayin'. The slip thing feels more significant to me, a clumsy person, and I wish I'd considered this in advance. There is a very simple solution: a good ole' rubber band. But, you know.

Yep, it definitely does. I was just too exhausted to go looking for the gear.

It took a 3 day lye bath; 2 days of easy-off; two hours in the neighbor's self-cleaning oven; a final vinegar soak; and a salt attack with steel wool. But we are, finally, back in action. Ugh. NEVER AGAIN!!

I have carbon-off, and have used it on thinner layers of carbon on my all-clad pans. It didn't occur to me to use it on the cast iron gunk before I bought the lye. But the pans came out of the lye this morning, and the remnants are getting the carbon-off approach. And again: I'm really mad at myself for letting these pans get to this level of gnarly.

I'm on bean club lite, too; for some reason I thought I was getting this one, and was wondering where my shipping memo was. Shoot. At least it's one of the ones you can purchase outside of bean club.

It's my very favorite RG bean; so I'm glad I didn't cancel my subscription just yet.

Everything you say makes sense.

Well. There has been no fire. But there has been so much smoke that I couldn't keep up with the smoke detector, and I've had to abort the whole project. I will see how this neighbor feels about me disengaging her smoke detector (which is hardwired); but I have a feeling I'm gonna have to get down with some lye soon. Sigh. I really wish I had a teenager who could be assigned this chore . . . .

So. Another thing that went to pot in my life during the pandemic has been the care of my cast iron. The nasty I have let accumulate is downright shameful, particularly my oldest pan which I bought in Allston, MA at a "Caldor" when I was 21 years old; I believe it cost 11 dollars. The seasoning on it was pristine -- pristine -- until the 2020 decimation of all of my mature functioning. So I am spending this afternoon's Zooms at my neighbors apartment, where her self-cleaning oven is getting cleaned, and also giving my pans A Fresh Start. I admit, there is some worry that this much gunk is going to catch fire . . . .

I've been fixated, longingly, on the Weber since I first read that post. And then the "Standard Pepper Mill", its competitor (according to someone on the knife-fiend forum, those two products reflect a founders split from what was once a single company; I gather the mills mechanisms are very similar). The latter one is a hundred dollars less; but still. I just couldn't justify the price (against my personal tolerance, not "worth"). The Cannon, however, with the discount was not that much more than my Atlas -- which, conveniently, seems to have some defect in the grind-adjustment knob, it's like it can't get tight, let alone stay tight. And the Cannon it promises to produce way more pepper per turn. Hopefully that means I won't be too aggravated by the twist-style. And it just arrived: The instructions include a warning that the interior should "only be cleaned with a brush". I, um, did not know that the inside of the pepper mill got cleaned. Literally could never have imagined such a thing. This other one, which I also learned about on that knife forum, was actually my first choice. But the owner still does not know when any of the interesting colors will be back in stock. https://iron-mills.com/collections/salt-and-pepper-mills