Black Sabbath press conference video

There’s really not much of particular substance here, but I just wanted to call out that when you see the table with Sabbath and Rick Rubin, against all odds, Rick Rubin is the oldest looking guy there.

Treat your cast-iron right…

and it will be kind to you.

Sheryl Canter has “a very specific technique for seasoning cast iron cookware”:http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/ that is supposed to produce amazing results. Like all the best techniques, it’s grounded in science rather than hearsay.

But don’t take her word for it–Americas Test Kitchen tried her technique, and found that after treating a cast-iron skillet based on her technique, you could send it through a commercial wash cycle–with degreasing agent–and the finish was undamaged.

Our three cast iron skillets–one of which belonged to my great grandmother–are used so consistently they live on top of the stove; we basically never put them away. We use our stainless steel pots for soups, basically, but cast iron for everything else. This does present me with the small problem of taking them out of circulation to season them well.

Mind you, I have my eye on a Le Creuset Dutch Oven some day. Enameled, but still cast iron.

Stanley Fish’s Life Report

I understand Stanley Fish is a controversial character. I don’t rightly know why–I gather something about academic politics and maybe being on the wrong side of people who like to call other people fascists or something–and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t concern me.

What I do know is that I find “this essay he wrote about the things, in retrospect, he wishes he had placed more importance upon during his life”:http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/my-life-report/ to be compelling stuff.

Kim Kardashian

Oh, pop culture, why would I care?

In fact, I don’t–other people’s marriages are of interest to me only to the extent that some people are unfairly excluded from it on the basis of their sexual orientation–but this does seem an opportune moment to make an observation.

Kim Kardashian’s mockery of a marriage seems to me less about the failure of morals in a liberal society–a subject upon which I would not be surprised to hear many pundits bloviate in the coming days—and more about the allure of money and the type of action to which its pursuit often leads. Kim Kardashian was simply doing what was necessary to make sure she was one of the 1%. It seems worthwhile to consider whether others, too, might have fallen into immoral behavior in its pursuit.