works of wanderlust

Category: cast iron guy

  • Friday Frights: Cast Iron Versus Magic

    There are countless great arguments to switch to cooking with cast iron, but a socio-political one was outlined recently by the HBO Comedy show, Last Week Tonight, as they profiled a report on the effects to both our health and the environment from the types of chemicals used to make other non-stick frying pans.

    You can watch the twenty-minute clip embedded below … which if you are unfamiliar with the show is a late-night, no-holds-barred news-comedy program. (And a language/political-bend warning for those with sensitive minds.)

    To sum up ( if the clip doesn’t play in your part of the world) a group of chemicals called PFAs have been used to make all sorts of modern products since the 1950s. While there have been countless conveniences from these products, there have also been many environmental and human health problems that have been identified from the manufacture or disposal of things containing those chemicals.

    One of the big, well known products is Teflon™ which could be considered the non-stick alternative to a well-seasoned cast iron pan.

    But where cast iron becomes non-stick through seasoning, a process that can be done at home and involves the polymerization of food-safe oils into a thin, slick surface on top of the raw iron, chemical non-stick coatings are factory applied and involve typical sorts of industrial side effects.

    Of course, manufacturing cast iron cookware is undeniably a resource intensive effort, too. Mining, refining, extreme heat, and casting, not to mention the costs of shipping heavy pieces of cookware around the world.

    Neither of these are perfect.

    But as the scales weigh out the pros and cons, cast iron versus coated non-stick pans, factoring in things like longevity of the cookware itself, sustainability of the manufacturing process, impacts to our well-being and our world, and the accumulation of chemical debt that is incurred by the mass production and disposal rates of both these options, I more and more feel like those scales are tilting out towards cast iron.

  • (Un)inflatable Winter

    At the risk of writing a (slightly) political article alluding to some opinions about supply chains and the state of the modern world, I wanted to share what (finally) arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

    A box.

    In fact, it was a large box, and a box I’d ordered … in June.

    In June, we were undergoing record heat, the days were long, and ahead of us were all sorts of free summer weekends filled with plans and potential for getaways to the mountains or nearby lakes or anywhere our pandemic lockdown selves could reach in a car without crossing borders.

    We optimistically ordered an inflatable kayak. And not just any old blow-up boat. We did some research, trialed some rentals, talked to people who know about these things, and ultimately invested in a fairly mid-to-high-end kayak made of sturdy materials and meant for real, practical outings.

    It never shipped.

    We received a notice about it being low in stock, then out of stock, then anticipated back in stock any day, and then a simple we’ll update you about your order when we have more information.

    After a month of waiting we cautiously ordered a second (much cheaper) inflatable kayak … if only because we had lodged it into our hearts that we wanted to get out on the water in one form or another. Summer was short. Summer is always short. Had the first one shipped in the meanwhile we would return the second. Or, alternatively, keep it for the kid (there are three of us and a dog, after all.) But it seemed like summer was slipping away while we waiting for an invisible manufacturing or shipping problem to resolve itself.

    The replacement arrived quickly, and so July and August were peppered with outings in our bright yellow inflatable dinghy-come-kayak, more of an oblong boat or a canoe-shaped raft toy than a proper adventure tool.

    No word on the first kayak.

    We went out once in September but already the weather was starting to cool and the risk of falling in the water and chilling too much was not sitting well with my practical sensibilities on the noob kayaker front.

    Still, no original kayak arrived.

    October came and dwindled. On some of my morning runs I noted that the creeks had a layer of ice on them already as the overnight temperatures consistently dipped into the sub-zero freezing range. I packed up the big yellow kayak into our winter storage space and resigned myself to start thinking about snowier sports.

    Then on Halloween, a shipping notice arrived in my email, and a few days later a big cardboard box was dropped off on the front step.

    The original kayak had arrived.

    Just in time for winter.

    Just in time to drop it into my storage space … and dream about next year’s kayaking adventures.

  • daylight

    Dawn hides itself deeper in the morning,
    As night’s darkness waxes upon winter
    Year after year, as predictable as
    Lunar orbits bring the tides and
    Ice drawn heaps of crystalline snow
    Greet shortened hours of sunlight
    Honouring plotted courses through space and
    Time and seasons passing now and ever.

    – bardo

    I have reserved some space on this blog each week to be creative, and to post some fiction, poetry, art or prose. Writing a daily blog could easily get repetitive and turn into driveling I have reserved some space on this blog each week to be creative, and to post some fiction, poetry, art or prose. Writing a daily blog could easily get repetitive and turn into driveling updates. Instead, Wordy Wednesdays give me a bit of a creative nudge when inspiration strikes.

  • Travel: Disney in the Time of COVID

    My wife has been waking up at three thirty in the morning lately. Deliberately. Her alarm goes off, she activates her phone, logs into the Disneyworld website, and queues up her virtual reservation system trying to get us a dinner seating at a reasonable time and place … for some time next year.

    I’m not a planner.

    For example, when a couple years back I ditched the official tour group, our dance studio travelling companions, for a couple days to head off in advance to Ireland leaving them behind in Scotland, I arrived in Dublin, checked into my hotel and then, simply, went for a walk.

    No real destination planned. No expectations. No reservations. Not even a proper bus ticket to get me back to the start. Just me and my feet, wandering.

    I plan vacations, of course. But more often than not when I get there I like to explore, take things as they come, and see what the trip presents me.

    It’s great.

    But here’s the thing …

    We’re planning a trip to Florida for the new year.

    We’re even crossing an international border, no less.

    And I assumed the planning part, including booking flights, hotels, and a car rental was complete. (In fact I assumed it was complete almost two years ago when we booked it the first time but then it got cancelled and we had all these travel credits and … deep breath!)

    I was wrong. In 2022 a trip to the magical magic kingdom is rife with a less-than-cavalier planning problem. You can’t just show up. You can’t “wing it.” You can’t arrive without a charged phone with the Disney app, nor lacking a catalog of ride times, neither walking in out of the parking lot hoping for anything but a day of disappointment and disaster … which brings me back to three-thirty this morning, when my wife’s alarm went off.

    See, between crowd limits and general popularity, it seems as though Disneyworld has its own planning problem: tens of thousands of people arrive each and every day into their parks and all those people want to enter, play, ride, shop, eat, and exit to go back to their hotels. Rinse. Repeat.

    In order to get a meal that isn’t served at a kiosk from a paper plate, we need a reservation, and reservations open so many days in advance at six in the morning Florida time, fill up in literal minutes, and we’re not on Florida time. So, if she waits until the morning … hello quick serve pizza slices for supper.

    See, guys like me throw off the flow.

    Disney can’t just have everyone … or really anyone … showing up and wandering, no plans, no structure, lacking expectations or reservations.

    In fact, those literal reservations need to be made months in advance, setting up plans about which rides you plan to be riding on which days and which meals you intend to eat at what time and when and where … and perhaps even why…

    All that spontaneous family fun, it turns out, needs to be carefully orchestrated months before the suitcases come out of storage. I already know what days and times we’ll be standing in line for that Star Wars ride or It’s a Small World, or just Starbucks to keep my eyes open with a venti coffee to help keep me alert as I reach the point of exhaustion from the meticulously planned vacation.

    Partly I blame COVID. The need to organize people flow around health rules has exacerbated the drive towards app-driven, technology-backed, ultra-planned everything.

    Partly it is also a symptom of going somewhere nearly universally popular.

    And partly, I take the blame as someone who doesn’t thrive in this type of vacation … and taking one for the “team” so that the family can have a long-planned trip.

    Next time, though, I’m just going to leave my phone at home and go get lost in the woods.

  • Creative Outlets

    It’s November.

    Every November for the last couple years I’ve hunkered down in front of my computer keyboard and started writing … occasionally finished writing … a novel.

    There is an online writing event called NaNoWriMo wherein those so inclined to put pen to paper (or more likely, fingers to keyboard) can launch through a month-long inspirational, deadline-based effort to scrawl out fifty-thousand words around a singular cohesive plot in one month.

    I’m skipping a year.

    It’s not that I didn’t think about it.

    A lot.

    Heck, I even roughed out a basic plot outline and started naming characters.

    Rather, it’s that I have a bunch of other projects, other creative outlets that I’ve decided to make a priority … keep a priority.

    This blog, for one, is among a small set of projects that have gnawed into my free time and tempted my distractibility to it’s frayed ends. And entering the eleventh month on the homestretch to the one year anniversary of this site, I’ve liked how it’s going and am happy with the results of the effort so far.

    I’ve also been doing a lot of drawing. The prospect of actually travelling again next year has me excited about bringing an art set on vacation and doing a lot more urban sketching. I think I’ve written about this before, but I’ve been an avid photographer for decades, and the next step for me seems to translate that compositional eye I’ve developed into something slower and more deliberate, like watercolours and sketching. That does mean that I’ve been using the free time I could have been writing a novel, and instead practicing my art skills, bringing them up to a stronger space worthy of capturing travel scenes. And while one might think a little bit of drawing practice would be quick and simple, even a basic sketch (like the one above) can consume about ninety minutes of my Sunday afternoon.

    In short, time for creative outlets is precious and limited. A new project would detract from all projects.

    Between blogging, nabbing photos for the site, doodling, and of course poking through various cookbooks trying to foster that more delicious side of my creative urge … a novel is not in the cards this November.

    My priorities are set, at least for a little while. So, thanks for reading this one.