I hope everyone had a great holiday! I was home at my mother’s for Christmas and spent the rest of New Years at Ryan’s folks’ place in Portland, Oregon. Portland is rustic and beautiful, although small. This time around, I spent a majority of the time snuggled in a snuggie watching movies [...]]]>

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I was home at my mother’s for Christmas and spent the rest of New Years at Ryan’s folks’ place in Portland, Oregon. Portland is rustic and beautiful, although small. This time around, I spent a majority of the time snuggled in a snuggie watching movies or playing videogames. Dragon Age: Origins, to be exact. Yeah. (Right Image: I keep it classy!)

Before we left for Oregon, we celebrated Ryan being done with his document and lecture recital at Sakagura. It was a semi-anniversary/Christmas/being done celebration. Following that, after Christmas, right before I left for Portland, Sarah and Danny had a fun dinner party at the apartment they were home/dog-sitting for. Ryan’s always said that Sarah was a genius in the kitchen, and I was really looking forward to it. She was twittering for 3 days before hand in preparation.

In Portland, I ate pretty damn well. That coupled with the fact that I didn’t walk much… caused me to GAIN 5 lbs in 6 days. Seriously. I only know that, because I joined NYSC right before Christmas and started going, 3 or so days before going to Portland and I weighed myself. So, it’s been a week after coming back and I went to the gym 4 times. However, no sign of these excess weight budging. Yes yes… I will be gaining muscle, still. Did I seriously gain 5lbs in 6 days? If it was water weight, it should have come off by now, right? I’m eating a little better, although not pristinely. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I am not going to be eating as well as I did when I lost a massive amount of weight in undergrad. (That’s a story for another day…) I did come to grips with the fact that if I am going to eat the way I do, then I need to move more. I’m just one of those people that will need to work out, out of my way, for the rest of my life.

Other news: We just got ourselves a cast-iron skillet (deep enough for me to make a pie!) before going to Portland. My mother has an iron frying pan, a little mini one. It’s mighty old and good to use. Otherwise, I’m clueless about its maintenance. So, Ryan’s mother told me all about “seasoning” a pan. From camping, I’ve heard/seen cast iron pots being cleaned right on top of the coals. Otherwise, I had no idea what I was doing in the kitchen. After much googling, I set to work. A friend’s griddle recently exploded in his oven (we can’t figure out why – it definitely wasn’t thermal shock), so I was a bit apprehensive.

I basically used grape seed oil to start. However, apparently you can use other oils that are resistant to burning. We didn’t have any shortening (this is a butter house-hold), so I spread the oil on the insides AND outsides with a paper towel. I placed it upside down on a baking sheet with aluminum foil and popped it in the oven two times for around an hour at 400-500 degrees.

I did stumble upon sites that claimed “seasoning” was unnecessary, and you just need to liberally apply oil everytime you cook in the beginning – the more you use it the more seasoned it becomes. Duh. So, I left it at those two times and set to work making some bacon and eggs for breakfast. The bacon stuck a bit, but with some online instruction via youtube, on frying eggs on cast-iron, the eggs came out beautifully.

Ryan was the one that really pushed for a cast iron skillet, although he had no idea about the maintenance of one. He wanted to “I am Man. I sear MEAT!” or something, you know. I’m just hoping to get some nice tender steaks out of it. Apparently they suggest anemic people to cook with cast-iron, so that they get more iron in their system. (I guess this beats ingesting teflon, eh? I thought teflon was the cat’s meow, but my mother never caught on, so we never used it.)

After using it, the cast-iron isn’t as high maintenance as I originally thought. I need to watch out for thermal shock, though, I suppose, as I am used to just throwing pans in the sink. One thing that I am thankful for is a steel spatula. We had one of those plastic ones before… but the steel spatula is much needed for cleaning and scraping. I also boiled some hot tap water to get most of the crusty things off. Then lightly scrubbed, oiled, and heated. I need to invest in some cute pot holders.