I am suffering from heavy metal fatigue. I guess it’s one of those things you have to tolerate as you put another birthday behind you. I am not as strong as I once was.
Back in the days when my eldest was in his early teens, we’d engage in a bit of wrist wrestling. He was a talented cricketer and hockey player but his developing muscles were puny compared with mine. I’d always win. Then one day he almost beat me so I wisely quit while at my peak. These days my cat is probably stronger than I am.
Unfortunately my diminishing strength is taking its toll in the kitchen. Some of my favorite equipment is getting a little beyond my grasp.
I love my Le Creuset ware but when I have to bend over to lift a full cast iron casserole in and out of the oven, it suddenly weighs a tonne.
Six years ago I was offered the chance to test-drive something from the Jamie Oliver cookware range. I opted for a frying pan because I wanted one with an ovenproof handle so I could cook dishes that went from stove top to oven – duck breasts, frittata, salmon.
It’s been a brilliant pan and I use it at least once a week. In fact I bought a deeper lidded sauté pan from the range a couple of years back and it’s also in regular use for curries and the like. I just wish they were a little lighter. One-handed operations like tipping the finished dish into a serving bowl while keeping the flow under control with a spoon certainly test my strength. I wonder if Jamie O’s gran could use his pans?
My mother once owned a vintage speckled green enamelled cast iron frying pan. She used it for cooking chips – in beef dripping, of course – and for frying eggs and bacon, cooking sausages and turning perfectly good steak into boot leather. It was supplanted by a new-fangled electric frypan, but that was a messy beast to clean with its “do not immerse in water” caveat.
Along the way the vintage pan was jettisoned. Maybe it got too heavy for her. In latter years she had a pretty rumpty collection of lightweight (in more sense than one) frypans. When I visited, I had to turn them over and stand on them to level the bases for her. She wouldn’t part with them because they were “well-seasoned” which meant grease would ooze out of their pores when the pans were heated. I still marvel that she never had a cholesterol problem.
I am now on the lookout for a decent lightweight frying pan, if there is such a beast. I tried using my pre-JO pan for poaching eggs yesterday but when three out of the four stuck to the pan, The Spouse decided it no longer deserved space in the pot cupboard. It went into the bin – where last week he’d put the muffin pans that had lost their “non-stick” property.
“You don’t have to keep these things forever,” he said.
Nope – they’re definitely not built to last.