Chupaqueso.com

Technically, a “monger” is “a dealer in a specific commodity.” Since I don’t SELL cheese, I guess I can’t be a true cheesemonger. But I do deal it out to myself, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

My secret: ziploc bags, cling wrap, and a cold windowsill.

Big pieces of cheese get cling-wrapped and ziploc’d, and put into the fridge.

Medium-sized pieces of cheese get cut from the big pieces, cling-wrapped separately, and then set upon our North-facing kitchen window sill.

Small pieces of cheese (one snack’s worth) get cut from the medium-sized bits and eaten, but only AFTER the medium-sized bits have been on the sill for a couple of hours. Good cheese is best consumed at room temperature.

I’m pretty sure that temperatures on that sill never exceed 65 F in the winter. I’ve had medium-sized chunks sit there for two or three days, and they were just fine for cutting into and eating. In fact, they were PERFECT. I now try to only deal myself cheese after it’s been out for a day.

In this way I’m still making my way through the last 3/8ths of a wheel of Shitake-Leek Appalachian. There’s a quarter-wheel in cling-and-zip with the rind still on it, and 1/8th wheel, trimmed, in cling wrap on the sill.

I just got two cans of Washington State University “Cougar” cheese from a reader, and some of that is on the sill right now, too. I’ll write more about that stuff in another post. It’s taaaaasty.

The cast-iron skillet I got yesterday was pre-seasoned. I compared the coating it had to the coating I’ve got on my griddle, and made an important discovery:

Lodge “pre-seasoning” is just that. It’s what they do to the pan BEFORE you sit down and give it a proper seasoning yourself.

I’ve cooked on the pre-seasoned surface three times now, and while it’s okay, it’s not nearly so non-stick as the surface of the griddle. So I got out the Crisco, fired the oven up to 350F, and gave my new skillet a good, thick coating. It took about two hours.

The difference is quite visible. NOW it’s ready for business. (Chupaquesos for lunch today!)

I’m ready for Teflognarok. Bring the Teflocalypse. Amass the armies of Teflogeddon. I have a Lodge 8″ skillet, and it works perfectly (for my own definition of perfect.)

I had two basted eggs for breakfast, and they were delicious. They slid right out of the skillet, picture perfect. They also tasted better than teflon-skilletted eggs, but I’m willing to concede that the improved flavor was just my imagination.

I also had toast, yes — low-carbing took a hit this morning in the interest of science. You might ask whether toast was really necessary to the process, since it never comes anywhere NEAR the skillet. I assure you, it was. Basted eggs without toast are just chicken by-products.

Anyway, a big thank-you goes out to Haesselich, who so graciously provided the skillet. Between the skillet and the griddle, I’m ready fo’ da gummint to takes away mah teflon.

For me, the perfect skillet is determined by three things:

1) non-stick surface.
2) Nine-inch diameter.
3) A lid that fits.

This is because when I’m not low-carbing, my favorite breakfast in the world is two basted eggs with two pieces of toast, buttered, for dipping in the yolks. Other sides may accompany it — orange juice, grits, and bacon complete the “hearty” variation — but basted eggs and toast are the key elements.

With the impending Teflocalypse (Teflogeddon? Teflognarok? Find me a word that says “the end of the world if the world depends on Teflon”) I need to find a skillet that will work as well as any one of the four 9-inch teflon pans I’ve had over the last sesquidecade.

See, a basted egg BEGINS just like a fried egg — you take a yolk-intact egg and drop it gently into a hot pan, preferably with some butter already sizzling in there. (Note: in terms of timing, this is also the point at which the plunger on the toaster must be depressed). The egg is allowed to fry for a moment, and then the steam-basting begins.

You take the lid for the pan, put about 2 tbsp of water in the lid, and then dump the water in next to the egg. Now pop the lid on and wait for the toast to come up.

Yes, that’s how I time it. So very scientific, I know. It’s more of a performance art.

Anyway, when the toast is done, the egg is done (assuming you like your toast done the way I like mine done, and your toaster works like mine does, and you have the heat set right… so many variables, so many assumed values) and you put both of them on your plate.

If, that is, you can get the egg off the pan. See, with a good teflon pan, the boiling water will lift the egg from the surface, and the whole mess slides right out, no trouble. With stainless steel it just plain WON’T WORK.

The question — will it work with cast iron? I’m not about to go buy a 9″ cast iron skillet to TEST with, because I’m short the disposable income. I hope it works, though, because within five years both of my 9″ skillets are going to be due for replacement, and by then the Fourth Angel will be Brandishing His Spatula and Cleansing the Griddle of the World with Fire and With Olive Oil. Or something like that.

I swear, I didn’t plan this. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I posted about how much longer lasting cast iron is when compared to teflon… and now I hear that the EPA is seeking to eliminate teflon completely within 10 years.

Here are a few news links…

ABCNews.com - Dupont ceasing teflon-related emissions by 2010

MSNBC - Teflon emissions and cancer risks

Tuberose.com - (giving us a pile of anti-Teflon facts that I know to be true because I read them on the internet)

Apparently there is an increasing body of evidence linking one of the chemicals used in the production process, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), to cancers in laboratory animals, as well as to a number of health problems in humans.

The EPA and Dupont assure us that there’s no PFOA in teflon itself — the chemical is used in the PRODUCTION of teflon. But there’s also a growing body of evidence showing that when teflon overheats it emits ammonium perfluorooctane (also a potential carcinogen), among other (reportedly toxic) things.

I could read up on this all day, but I’ve got cartooning to do. Y’all go dig around and tell me what you think.

–Howard

(hat tip to “Dragon” for this one)

There have been a couple of comments in other threads about a special “omelette pan” that enables you to trifold your omelette without a spatula. Chupaqueso Reader Ford Finley stayed up all night watching TV just so he could track the thing down. Here’s a web address for Chef Giornali’s Omelet Pan, brought to you by the folks at humbly-named “Smart Inventions Inc.”

I’m not recommending any of you buy this thing. I see two problems with it:

1) It’s teflon, so it’s got a limited life expectancy.
2) It’s teflon with moving parts. I bet that life expectancy is measured in weeks if you make a couple of omelettes a day.

That said, if any of you want to buy one and review it for us, how you use your disposable income is no business of mine. But we’ll upgrade your chupaqueso.com WordPress account so that you can submit an article for our editorial staff to review.

(I probably shouldn’t accuse “smartinventions.com” of hubris in the same post where I refer to Jay and myself in the third person as an “editorial staff.”)

I finally got clear of my other stuff going on and added the words to go with the pretty pictures on the basic howto page. Hopefully, that page will demystify the process of making the chupaqueso and allow even the most inexperienced computer geek to successfully make the first one. Please comment here if there’s stuff that needs clarifying.

Jay’s got some pictures up here, but hasn’t added explanatory text yet.

If you flip through them fast enough, you’ll have a chupaqueso movie! (Jay takes a LOT of pictures.)

I was enamored once. I had a crush. I thought, like most men with crushes, that She Was The One. I thought that come whatever, We Two would grow old together, aging gracefully, and sharing a love that endures.

She was the perfect cooking surface. Ah, my sweet Teflon. I brought home the bacon, and she was the pan I fried it up in. The hotcakes like which some things went always went best on Teflon’s smooth skin.

Her smooth skin… so amazing to the touch. It was as if it wasn’t even THERE it was so soft. And when Chupaqueso was but a twinkle in my eye, she was there, ready to bear it through the heat, the turning, the twisting… Teflon bore my child, and I thought we two were forever.

But it couldn’t last. I tried to treat her with care, I was as tender as a man can be, never abrasive, and never EVER using metal utensils. For a while it seemed like we WOULD see forever, but then her skin began to discolor, and my sweet Teflon started to grab things.

I did what I could. I worked around her rough edges, forgiving her the occasional stuck spot. But it only got worse. Her rough edges only got rougher, and Teflon’s smooth skin gave way to bare metal a bit at a time. And one day I realized the two of us were finished. I could no longer trust her to help me with meals, because she just wouldn’t let go of them. She had changed, and what she had become I could no longer abide atop my stove.

I thought about taking a younger bride into my kitchen, one whose Teflon skin was still supple, but the infatuation was gone. After all, I knew that no matter how kindly I treat her, any Teflon I bring home will eventually turn on me, ruining meals and making cleanup a nightmare. Oh, it might be years before that happened, but having seen the past I felt I could see the future, and it held only heartbreak, and stuff stuck to the pan.

Then I met her… Cast Iron. She seemed so ungainly at first. She wasn’t just rough around the edges — she was ALL rough edges, and bare metal ones at that. But she gave me this look, and she promised me that she could do everything teflon could, and that she really COULD do it forever… if only I’d spend a little time at the beginning of our relationship learning to use oil.

I was skeptical, but I got the oil, and my Cast Iron sweetheart and I worked on those rough edges. Two hours and three hundred degrees later I saw that her skin glistened, darkly daring me to TRY to stick something to it. So I did, and it didn’t, and we did it again and again and again. French toast, pancakes, omelettes, and of course fried cheese… she was untiring, and I had a big appetite.

I have a new love. She may look like she’s still a little rough around the edges, but OH! can she ever cook. She’s not as glamorous as Teflon, but she’s beautiful in her own way. And I can see already that she’ll grow more beautiful with time. The first time we made chupaquesos together, it was as if we’d been doing it for years. And the promise of Cast Iron is that we WILL be doing it for years. If I treat her well, breaking out the oil from time to time, and never throwing her in the dishwasher or leaving her outside in the rain, she’ll easily outlive me.

Okay, I’ll admit that it’s a little creepy thinking of my new love, my Cast Iron griddle, cooking with another man. But that’s decades away. When the time comes, I’ll just have to make sure that I find her a man who likes chupaquesos, and who knows how to use the oil.