Last May, if you recall, I was lucky enough to find an awesome old stove on Craigslist. Part of my strong desire to switch back to a coil top range was my wish to switch to cast iron skillets for our stovetop cooking.
There are some of the flat top ranges that claim to be able to handle the weight and heat retention of cast iron, but our stove wasn't one of them and it just seemed too risky.
Cast iron has proven to be my favorite way to cook many different foods. And with minimal effort on my part, I have a safe alternative to chemical-laden nonstick coatings.
Now, I am actually getting around to something here. (No, really!)
See the colorful cover on the handle in the last picture? I made some custom covers for my skillet handles back in February, and talked about them at the bottom of an interminably long and rambling post, if you're feeling brave...
For the sake of not digging back through, here are the shots of the first set:
They were really easy to make. No pattern, no measuring, just sized them up on the handles as I went along. All they took were a few layers of flame-resistant fabric (I used plain and printed vintage feedsack scraps), some heat-proof material (in my case, some nasty looking oven mitts from the scrap pile), and some snaps.
Overall, they have worked perfectly for us. In fact, I almost never take them off!
Now then. Why am I telling you all this again? Well, I was one of several people interviewed for an article on cast iron cooking here in Berks County. The article is running tomorrow (Wednesday, 9/5/12) in our local paper, The Reading Eagle. If all goes as planned, it will include some of my always-endearing rambling, a recipe, and perhaps a picture or two.
No matter what does end up making it in, I have finally gotten around to making a tutorial for anybody who might want to whip up some of their own little handle covers, and I will be posting it tomorrow (with a link to the newspaper article too of course!) so stay tuned. :)
