Three Amazing Things... In My Kitchen



1. Cast Iron Cookware is Amazing.

Our grandmothers knew what they were doing depending on these babies.  Yes, these pots and skillets are heavy; you don't do any flipping of pancakes with them, and they would make an effective weapon against a rhinoceros, but they last literally forever. Cast iron is awesome. Without adding cooking spray or grease, a fried egg slides right out of a well-seasoned frying pan.  There are never mystery flakes of non-stick coating peppering your food and there is no worry about the ill effects of aluminum or other alloys.  Good, old fashioned iron is just about as safe as you can get, and even adds the health benefit of extra iron to our diets.  Because the iron is so thick throughout, food cooks more evenly;  it takes a particularly ditzy cook to burn the bottom of the stew in a cast iron dutch oven.  Nothing works as well for "blackening" a roast, and

once something has heated through, you can turn off the heat, cover the pot or pan with a heavy lid and the food will stay good and warm for a remarkably long time.  And, what's best is that, relatively speaking, quality cast iron cookware is inexpensive.  I don't think I could cook without mine. I love my pots and pans.  Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em.

2.  This Unassuming Bit of Plastic Is Amazing.

Can you guess what it is?  It's a pot scraper!  It cost me all of .99 at a cooking store in a mall and I would not be without it.  The two corners have different shapes to fit into the curves of different pots or pans and the plastic doesn't scratch, but gets out almost anything that's stuck on.  The thin edge also works for peeling off stickers, scraping windshields, and scratching backs.  Of all the silly, goofy, dumb little things I've bought on a whim, this little gadget is the most amazing. Especially for less than a buck.

See, this is how it works:



Check it out.  It's the perfect paring for my cast iron frying pan.
Like comb for curly head or a  remora to a shark -- or something like that.


 And Last But Not Least...
3. My Cuisinart Coffee Pot Is an Amazing Thing.

  I love coffee.  And I love my coffee pot.  It has an automatic coffee bean grinder for fresh-ground coffee whenever we want it.  It's programmable.  It has a carafe that keeps the coffee hot for an amazingly long time.   And in a household of somewhat technologically incompetent early-morning fumblers, this is a machine that our nine-year-old can easily set up to brew.

 And it makes a very good cup of coffee. 

It is amazing. 



* Do you have any favorite amazing kitchen doodads you'd like to share?