On 2/10/2016 at 0:41 PM, HungryChris said:Smithy,
Will the cast iron skillet fit in the oven to be used like a stone?
It will, but then there isn't enough clearance for me to flip the puffed pita without losing it behind the skillet into the depths of the oven. Nice idea, though. 
We made a trek to town for groceries, post office, and so on. A reversible griddle, or a comal for cooking tortillas, or a baking stone was on the list. My darling found one, I found the other, and we brought home both a reversible griddle AND a new baking stone. So much for saving weight. The griddle may have to ride in the bed of the pickup when we're rolling down the road. The baking stone, 15" diameter, fits inside the oven with 1/2" to spare. Here they are for size comparison; a performance comparison - bake-off, so to speak, will be coming along by-and-by.
The bottom photo shows the griddle (Lodge, a bit less expensive than Batali) atop our stove.
We took a side trip on the way back. The area near Yuma, Arizona is another major agricultural supplier of the winter greens that turn up in this country's grocery stores. I assume, without being sure, that the same is true in the summer. It must be brutal work, and I'm glad there are people to do it. We drove past fields with crops I could identify and crops I couldn't, crops that were freshly planted or being harvested, and fields that were being prepared for the next crop. I stopped to look more closely at one mystery crop - what were those leaves? Wrong color for onion, kale or chard; too sturdy for spinach or lettuce. I spotted a truck driver taking a break and asked him what the crop was. "No habla Inglés," he replied. "Oh, lo siento!" said I, "¿quál est esto?" "Oh, broccoli!" said he, and drove on after I laughed at myself and we said goodbye. I had just looked at and photographed other fields of broccoli being harvested. This was the young stuff.
Above: a freshly-harvested field with red-leaf lettuce in the middle ground and green-leaf lettuce behind it, young broccoli, fields being prepared, and broccoli being harvested. Folks were loading the heads onto conveyor belts, I think, with others packing them and yet others loading the boxes into a truck. It was 87F. In February. Think about it, and be thankful.
Of course, none of this happens without water. The Southwest gets much of its water by shuffling it from one location to another, and the presence or absence of water makes for stark contrasts.
The next morning, as sunlight flooded our trailer I made the next batch of breakfast fruit salad and was grateful for people who had grown, harvested and provided our winter fruit.
Bridges have one kind of geometric beauty, and pineapples another.
