Slate investigates this most pressing of questions.
Drinking raw milk probably isn’t very healthy.
Worshippers at the milk shrine—to indulge in yet more hyperbole—stand before only one image of that perfect food. It’s golden, creamy, foamy, fresh from grass-fed, family-farm cows. It doesn’t cause but cures illness. Raw milk, with its legion of followers, has become a poster child of the food rights movement, giving emotional power to the idea that all of us deserve access to untainted, unprocessed, healthy food.
And it’s in this incarnation—the one that draws a cultlike following—that the raw-milk ideal becomes dangerous.
A review of Anthony Bourdain’s new book.
Despite all his rock ’n’ roll trappings, his trademark expletives and po-mo hand-wringing over whether he has now joined the ranks of the hypocrites, Bourdain’s book is really an old-fashioned morality play, where the protagonist meets personifications of various moral attributes along the way. There are Heroes: the defenders of the faith of good food and hospitality. And there are Villains: people who waste food, or disrespect it. For Bourdain, the cardinal sin is doing this knowingly, like the Guy Fieris and the Cargills of the world. It’s “a violation of a basic contract with decency, with the world and its citizens. In a word: evil.” He even has chapters titled Virtue and Lust.
The proper love and care of a cast iron skillet:
If there’s anything at all controversial about cooking with cast iron, it’s the proper way to clean it. You may have heard tales of someone’s grandmother who never cleaned her skillet, not once, just wiped it out with a rag, which is the secret to her amazing fried chicken. Personally, I don’t put much faith in this theory, if only because the thought of generations of rancid grease in my pan doesn’t strike me as particularly appetizing. My process goes something like this:
- drain off any leftover grease, wipe it out with a paper towel
- drain the sink of any leftover soapy, scummy water
- rinse the pan with hot water then scrub any stuck on bits with a synthetic brush or, better, folded over heavy duty paper towel
- DO NOT use soap, harsh cleansers, brillo, barkeeper’s helper, steel wool, etc.
- dry immediately with a paper towel
- apply a light coating of a neutral oil, like canola (NOT olive oil) with a dry paper towel while it’s still warm
- let the pan cool completely
- wipe down one last time with a paper towel to get rid of any excess oil, store in a dry place
- DO NOT leave your cast iron in a sink full of water and absolutely DO NOT run it through the dishwasher.
This process, which is really much easier than it sounds, will continue to improve your skillet’s seasoning. Just remember that cast iron will start to rust in a matter of hours, or less, if left in water. You certainly don’t want to season your cornbread with rust, do you?
