The Room Where it Happened

 

No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in
The room where it happens – Lin-Manual Miranda

The townhouse complex that we have lived in for almost 14 years is composed of units in about four different “flavors". When we moved across the street two years ago we chose a unit with the same layout as our previous home. Much better appointed, if I do say so, but other than the nagging issue of a switch being on the other side of the door than our previous home, the same basic layout.

Jedi Kitchen Tricks

Cast iron is so superior for cooking utensils to our modern aluminum that I not only cannot grieve for the pioneer hardship of cooking in iron over the hearth, but shall retire if necessary to the back yard with my two Dutch ovens, turning over all my aluminum cookers for airplanes with a secret delight. - Majorie Kinnan Rawlings

If you haven’t heard my recent podcast with Gabe DiMaio (and if you haven’t, shame on you! (not really, but you can listen to it here.)) I spent some time speaking of my love for cast iron cookware. Not the expensive enameled cast iron like La Creuset (though I have acquired similar pieces at a reasonable price).

No, I speak of the cast iron cookware that has been in use for at least 2000 years. Have you visited a Colonial cooking site? Someplace like Mt. Vernon, Monticello, Williamsburg or Ft. Erie? If so, you will have found pieces of cast iron cookware all but identical to those manufactured today. The problem is, that those manufactured today are not produced in quite the same manner.