Turpentine
October 25th, 2007
I just have to speak out against expensive cookware for a moment. And I say this as a person who owns expensive cookware. Maybe I’m not the cook I think I am (ha! HA!), but I am just as happy with my el cheapo cookware from Target as I am with my entire *set* of super-pricey Calphalon, and I’ll even go so far as to say I’m not bowled over by my Le Creuset pieces.
I don’t get it. Someone talk to me. When, if ever, is expensive cookware better? I have a range of stuff, from cast iron to non-reactive stainless steel, but I … I don’t get why they need to be pricey, for I’ve had several of them for — dare I say? — decades. Enlighten me.
I’m trying oh-so-desperately not to focus an undue amount of energy on the Sox game, because when I get too involved, I start to believe that I can move the ball with my mind. (I totally can.)
And right now, I’ll tell you that I fell asleep before the end of last night’s game. I just couldn’t take it, I was so tired that I was snippy, bitchy and unhappy, like a toddler who refuses to take a nap. As I get older — and keep the ridiculously early morning schedule I’ve been rocking — not only can I not stay up late, but I can’t even fake it, as I start to become grumpy, overwrought and excessively whiny. All super-attractive traits, especially if you ask my husband, who can’t so much as ask me to hand him the remote without a long diatribe about how the remote is so heavy and I am so tired, and why can’t he reach just a LITTLE further to save my arm the excess strain?
I am rapidly careening towards that point, so I’ll keep this short. But not before I ask: how is it possible for someone to write your full name — like, say, in an e-mail address — then misspell it in the body of the e-mail? Like, for example, if someone were to send an e-mail to jonna at jonniker.com, then write “Dear Johanna,” or worse, Joanna. Have I ever told you how much I hate the name Joanna? It’s not Joanna’s fault. It’s that it’s not my name, and I’m called Joanna at least five times a week. Instead of being a perfectly nice, valid name, Joanna is an abomination of my own name, and an entirely inappropriate, yet completely acceptable, name.
Also, if you’re wondering if you did this, I can assure you, you didn’t.
I imagine these are the same people who leave messages on our voice mail — the same voice mail that says, rather perkily, “Hi, you’ve reached Adam and Jonna …” and proceed to leave very personal medical information and perhaps the number for a Swiss bank account for a woman named Gloria Freinhofer.
And I just barked like an overtired seal at, in no particular order: my husband, the cat, the dog, the television and also my computer. It’s time.
Happy Friday! Happy Friday!
*Brandi Carlile. I use it today because it was one of the 12 free songs I snagged at Starbucks today, as part of their free song program. Because I am a sheep. A sad, sad consumerist sheep.
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
27 Comments Add your own
1. Janssen | October 25th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Hello FRIDAY!!!
Also, my name (Janssen) is constantly mispronounced as “Janice.” Why? I mention this to people on occasion and they always ask me “how is that possible?” I DO NOT KNOW, I just know that it happens frequently and predictably.
Oh, how I loathe the . Gah!
2. TwoBusy | October 25th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Baaaa.
Btw: I hope you’re not implying that I’m not directly affecting the Sox game from my seat on the couch, because we both know that’s not true.
3. She Likes Purple | October 25th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I’ve had my cell phone number for a little over a year now. My name is Jennie Canzo-something (which I say quite clearly on my voicemail) and AT LEAST once a day I get a message for Maria Ferraro.
4. My Buddy Mimi | October 25th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I met Alton Brown once, and we had a chance to ask him some questions. We asked what is the biggest mistake people make when outfitting their own kitchens. His answer was that everyone thought they needed a Viking range. Instead, they should keep their old stove and get better cookware…
I still have my old stove AND my old cookware.
5. aly | October 26th, 2007 at 4:46 am
hi! i can answer this! b/c my husband…. well, he got a little involved with our wedding registry. i would find him licking it in bed some days b/c he was THAT EXCITED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY of all of the cooking gear.
le crueset, i agree, is not worth the extra money. cast iron is SUPPOSED to be cheap! the good points about cast iron include something about iron flakes flaking off into your food to give you extra iron (i wish i was kidding) and the expensive stuff… well, no. plus, you’re not really supposed to wash it and it seems a travesty to spend $80 on a pot to let fat just sort of… hang out in it. i dont know. buy cheap cast iron!
as for the stainless steel vs. target brand– the stainless stuff is a different animal. there is (to my husband since i only biol water) much more even heating (ie. the entire bottom of something gets cooked vs. burning on one side, raw on the other), you can control the browning vs. scorching and better heat retention…. plus, i find them easier to clean.
i agree with my buddy mimi– i would use ikea upgrades for cabinets, etc. if you’re redoing a kitchen and spend my money on pans….
and i dont think i’ve been able to stay up past 11:30 in years. i’m ok with it and this point…
6. Sadie | October 26th, 2007 at 5:59 am
I have a mix of expensive (Calphalon, Tivoli) and inexpensive (Martha Stewart from KMart, pans from THE OCEAN STATE JOB LOT) cookware and the difference totally depends on just *how cheap* the cheap stuff was. In my experience there’s not a noticeable diff between my $100 Calphalon roaster and the $19.99 Martha Stewart one, but there is a big performance difference between my copper-bottom stainless $50 saucepan and the $9 cheap stainless alloy one. I have found fantastic, high-quality open stock pieces at Homegoods or Marshalls for $20…I think people are too concerned with brand names and they spend too much as a result.
Also, re: name misspellings – I ALSO seethe at the email error, which, when not obviously an innocent typo, makes me wonder if the writer is, in fact, retarded. If my email addy is sadie.lastname@blahblahdeblah, why is the first line of your email “Hi Sady!”???? And though I know it vexes you, I can at least understand why people might mistakenly call you “Joanna,” since it’s phonetically similar…but please explain to me why, my whole life, people have called me Sarah. WTF?? That’s not even close.
That ballgame last night, it bored me so…yet I superstitiously believe that if I go to sleep while the Red Sox have the lead, they will blow it while I slumber. So I loll, overtired and pissed, in front of the TV til the bitter end.
7. Mandee | October 26th, 2007 at 6:00 am
You know when you read recipes that specify you should use a “heavy-bottomed” pan? I think that is the key.
I’m the cook in my family, but I’m also single and live in a two bedroom house. Rather than have 7 people and two dogs at my home for holidays, I travel and cook in someone else’s kitchen. My mom and my sister have stainless steel cookware, but it is paper thin and I HATE it. Aly (or her husband) is exactly right–it’s the even heating that is frustrating. So, my opinion is the finish is not what matters; the weight is what is important.
I also read an interesting comment (I think on Whoorl’s Blog Action day post) about one of the benefits of using cast iron (real cast iron–not Le Crueset) is that you clean it with hot water. The end. No need to use any sort of soap or chemicals. I knew that was the rule but never thought about the environmental impact of it.
8. Tessie | October 26th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Dude, I feel you on that name thing. I estimate that about 75% of people I don’t know well call me “Tessa”. I’ve even had people go so far as to say that they didn’t think Tessie “sounded like a real name”. Well. MY APOLOGIES. I didn’t invite them to suggest what WOULD be a “real” name, in their estimation.
9. erica | October 26th, 2007 at 7:55 am
I get emails that start “Hi EriKa” all the time, despite the fact that my name is clearly spelled out in my actual email address. And I asked the same question aloud last week – how the hell do you send an email to someone and type in their name in the address – letter by letter – and then completely fuck up the spelling in the body of the email. I don’t get it. But I sign my return emails “Thanks, ERICA” just because I am a passive aggressive bitch.
10. Jen from Boston | October 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I just got a Calphalon ice bucket as a gift from my wedding. I had no idea this label was “the shit”.
Also, my last name is Lilienthal. It’s pronouced Lily N. thal which when I tell them my last name, some customer service reps are all, “Lily, sweetie, we just need your last name.” They think it’s my full name w/ middle initial. heh.
Or there’s the various bastardized pronouciations of it (good for screening telemarketers, at least there is that). I wonder if Rosenthals are subjected to this kind of torture.
I went to bed around 10:30. I couldn’t hang on past 6th inning. Oh, I told him about your disdain for Dance Cook – and Mike told me he listens to WEEI (a.m. radio station in Boston that broadcasts the Sox games, for those who don’t know) and they basically hate on him from 10-2:00 M-F. Thought that would make you smile.
11. Jen from Boston | October 26th, 2007 at 10:10 am
“I told mike” mu husband. they way that read it looks like I am assuming you know who “him” is. My bad.
12. Suebob | October 26th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I am convinced that about 70% of human endeavor is dedicated to making things needlessly complicated. Thus, the guy who starts out wanting to ride his bike around the neighborhood on weekends is soon clad in technicolor spandex, wearing $200 wraparound sunglasses and sitting astride a $4000 handbuilt Italian carbon-fiber bike frame.
So it goes with cooking. You COULD just saute your onions in the $11 supermarket frypan, but the $150 triple-bonded one eliminates hotspots! And oh, the woe of hotspots!
Suebob’s Theorem: the more time you spend doing something, the more likely you are to become a hopeless geek about it. If you think a boxed cake mix is fine (she said, fainting), then you can mix it with a rubbermaid spatula and put it in a throwaway aluminum pan. However, if you are in possession of The Cake Bible and plan to mash your own fresh raspberries for a coulis, you may well find yourself happily dropping over $100 on a fine mesh strainer (yes, a chinois, for all you FoodTv people).
And about names: my pet peeve is intercapping – people seem to love to write Suebob as SueBob. Personally, I hate the whole sad intercapping period of history (PageMaker! MasterCard! PlayStation! – is it STILL going on? MakeItStop!) and don’t wish to have my name typographically sullied.
13. metalia | October 26th, 2007 at 10:43 am
You have NO idea how often my real name is mispronounced; I, too, have a strong and irrational hatred of the name people always inadvertently call me.
14. Kristin H | October 26th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Kristen, Christine, Christian, Krissy–yep, I hear you. The worst was when a credit card company out of Minneapolis started leaving me threatening messages about an unpaid MasterCard bill that belonged to a Christine.
MY MACHINE: Hi, this is Kristin and Brad. Leave a message. Beep!
THEM, in a very frowny voice: Christina, this is XYZ Bank, calling about the $312 dollars you owe on your MasterCard. Please call us.
ME, calling them back: I’m KRISTIN, you assholes. You have the wrong number.
THEM: Oh, sorry. We’ll get that straightened out.
MY MACHINE, next day: BEEP! Christina, this is XYZ Bank calling about your MasterCard. We’re very angry with you. Call us.
(Repeat for three months in a row, until I changed my message to a lengthy diatribe explaining HOW they were assholes, WHY they were assoles, and how they could easily STOP being assholes by pulling their heads out of their collective assholes.)
15. Jen from Boston | October 26th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
today clearly is not my day for typing…”Dance Cook”. Actually, that’s kind of funny.
16. H | October 26th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I’m not involved in baseball at all unless the home state team makes it and then I get interested because there’s so much hype. However, I’m comforted that so many people also believe they can affect the outcome of a sporting event by their actions. Sometimes I worry I’ll jinx my daughter’s team if I dye my roots. Usually vanity prevails, and I do the roots, but I’m always a little worried…
Thanks for helping me feel normal.
17. Colleen | October 26th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Colleen and Colene. Hate it. Its more oral then in writing, but people frequently leave out various “l”s and “e”s via email. Drives me nuts. I feel ya.
18. Jeanne B. | October 26th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
To the Telemarketers out there:
Gee-Anne. I’m sorry, but that is NOT my name. I am also not Joe-Anne, Jah-neen, or (my personal favorite), Jeh-nayne (rhymes with “insane”),
It’s JEAN(NE). As in “gene pool” or “blue jeans”.
Sorry. But, why does the extra “ne” at the end throw you so much?
“Oh, because it’s spelled wrong”.
Uh, no, it’s not. In France, Jeanne is correct for girls. Jean is for boys. I am not a boy.
Jonna, I feel your pain.
19. jen | October 26th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
The Minimalist Mark Bittman thinks expensive cookware is unnecessary as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/dining/09mini.html
My pet peeve is Jennifers who spell their names slightly differently than normal — one n, two fs (my god, why?). THEY are the reason why I have to actually spell my name for customer service people sometimes, even though it is the most popular girl name ever.
20. Swistle | October 26th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Oh, totally. I HATE it when people call me Swizzle.
21. Lori | October 26th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I don’t know how many times I’ve been called “Laura” for Lori – why? I don’t know.
Then there’s my neighbor-across-the-street , who called me Linda for years and then suddenly she decided I was Lori again?
Forget about my maiden name… thank God my husband had a better last name to offer!
22. Mauigirl52 | October 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I do think copper, or at least copper-bottomed, cookware are better than plain stainles steel, as they conduct heat better. But they don’t have to be all that expensive. Pure copper is, of course, but the copper-clad ones aren’t bad. We were very excited to discover a pure copper (rather beat up) small saute’ pan at a yard sale for about $10 once. A true bargain!
I have a friend who named her daughter Johnna, because she was born just after my friend’s dad, who was named John, had passed away suddenly. I’m sure she gets the “Johanna” mistake all the time but she’s only 5 so it doesn’t bother her yet. When it does, I’m sure she’ll let everyone know about it, because even at 5 she doesn’t take much sh*t!
My last name (both maiden and now married) are always mispronounced, and sometimes misspelled. I always hoped my married name would be something like Smith or Jones, but no such luck. If anything it’s more confusing than the maiden name.
23. amber | October 27th, 2007 at 10:16 am
As an ‘Amber’ I don’t usually get called by the wrong name, although certain borderline-deaf people have been known to label me ‘Amanda’.
Also, I went to school with a ‘Johanna’ and let me just say, blech.
As for cookware: I use cheap-o Walmart cookery, because I cannot afford the fancy schmancy gleaming pots and pans of my dreams. Although you could have a valid point about the difference being not much.
24. Jeanne | October 28th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Jeanne B, I’m there with you! I actually have a miguided co-worker who spells her name the same way and pronounces it Jeannie. It’s pepole like that who ruin it for the rest of us. The E at the end is silent! At work I answer the phone, “This is Jeanne,” so why do people then say, “Hi Jeannie (Gee-Anne, Jeannine),” Clearly they weren’t even listing to what I just said. The extent of my future contact with the person dictates whether I spend the time to correct them.
25. Jennifer | October 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
After several weeks’ worth of protestations from me, my husband recently went into the most expensive cooking store in town and spent $250 on a LeCreuset dutch oven. GAH GAH GAH. He just got it into his head that he had to have it and that this one, and this one only, would work.
But, I’m willing to cut him a little slack right now because he’s a huge Colorado Rockies fan (born/raised in Denver) and oh boy are they getting humiliated. I’m wondering if they will be able to pull out at least one win (tonight’s their last chance!)
26. Josh | October 28th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Hmmm. I think Jonna is a kick ass name. I will admit though, I did not realize it was your name. I guess I thought your name was Jennifer, cause it sounds sort of like jonniker. I don’t know.
Also I just laughed my ass off because I got a quick half glimpse at the comment above mine and only saw the phrase “dutch oven”. And I so agree with you on expensive shit being a ripoff. Almost everything you need in life can be found at WalMart. Or Home Depot.
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