First, an unrelated anecdote:  we went to Cracker Barrel yesterday, allowing me to finally buy a couple of 6 1/2″ cast-iron skillets.  For some reason, Cracker Barrel is actually the best non-Internet source of cast-iron cookware around here; I don’t know why.  At any rate, I wanted a couple of skillets that were the right size for frying eggs and other single-serving types of meals, which is why I bought two.  I brought them up to the register before we got to our table, figuring that I’d just put them in the back of the car… and the lady behind the counter went nuts.

First, she wanted to know what I was buying them for.  Not, like, “cooking,” no, that wasn’t good enough.  She wanted to know specifically what foods I might choose to create in my new skillets.  “Eggs and hash,” I told her, which is weird, as I’ve never once referred to food just as “hash” before.  She nods, a frantic, manic-looking grin on her face, like she’s on E or something, except she was probably sixty years old.  Then she flips the skillets over.  “Just make sure not to murder anyone with them,” she says.  (Which is weird to begin with, but even weirder phrasing.  Not “don’t murder anyone with them,” “MAKE SURE not to murder anyone with them,” like I might do it by accident.)  She points out that the Cracker Barrel logo has been added to the bottom of the skillets.  “They’ll know you bought them here, and they’ll probably do some kinda CSI stuff to trace them back to you.”

Oh. Okay.  I’ll try not to.  I really just wanna fry eggs in something that will keep them contained, thanks.  My other skillets are too big.

In retrospect, this actually gets weirder, because her implication was not just that I might have to murder someone with my new, not-actually-very-big-or-heavy cookware, but that I might do it somewhere other than my own house, meaning that I’d have brought my two six-and-a-half-inch diameter skillets with me to go kill somebody, and then left them behind, and jesus WHAT THE HELL CRACKER BARREL LADY.

Hmm.  This post was gonna segue into privacy and PRISM from here, but now I’m looking at Amazon for reviews of the cookware I just got (turns out it would have been three bucks cheaper per pan, which is unsurprising) and I kinda wanna respond to one of these:

I give this one star to maybe help you escape the frustration that I went through with this pan. Go read about iron skillets before buying this. If the skillet doesn’t have a machined surface, you’re just asking for frustration. I bought one of these Lodge Logic skillets a while back, and it nearly made me give up on iron skillets forever.

The biggest advantage of an iron skillet is, of course, the taste. This skillet does deliver in that aspect. The taste of the food is wonderful when cooked in it.

However, the next biggest advantage of an iron skillet is the Teflon-like surface of a well-seasoned skillet. You will not get that with this skillet. The surface is rough and pebbly. I found that a good fried egg with the yolk intact is nearly impossible on this skillet. The egg gets “hooked” on the pebbles and you can’t get under it to flip it. You’ll just tear it up. Because of the pebbles, things will stick, and when they do, it’s hard to get the leavings out because of the rough surface. The only way I found to combat it was to heat the skillet to high heat and burn the sticky parts out. Lots of smoke doing that, though.

And DO NOT try to wipe this out with a paper towel or you’ll be picking out paper towel roly-polies for the next hour. That’s how rough it is.

Go spend the extra money and get yourself a real cast iron skillet with a machined surface. The seasoning will take on a varnished look to it – unlike the flat black of this skillet – and might actually be slicker than Teflon. Things will slide right out of it.

I use this skillet for a camp skillet now to give us an extra pan for making breakfasts, however, I only use it for very greasy foods like bacon or sausage. I just can’t recommend it.

The only reason I can see for the positive reviews on this skillet is because people were like I was, not knowing the joys of a skillet with a machined surface. And food cooked in it does taste good, but taste isn’t everything.

Nonsense, utter nonsense.  First of all, I literally just fried two eggs (not the eggs up above, those are just stock images) sunny side up in my new skillets and they were beautiful.  If you can’t get a spatula underneath your eggs on this kind of cookware you’re doing something terribly wrong.  I enjoy cooking, but I’ve only been doing it for about six months and I am nowhere near an expert.  If I can handle this, anyone should be able to.  “Nearly impossible,” my ass.  You lose ten points for hyperbole.  And I am THE KING OF ALL HYPERBOLE EVERYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE, so that means something coming from me.

Also, they’re called “towels,” and you should look into them.  Who the hell dries dishes with paper towels?

Also also, “taste isn’t everything”?  YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT FOOD.  It ain’t everything but it’s ferdamnsure MOST of everything.

Hmm.  Okay, so this is already close to a thousand words and the baby’s going to be awake in ten minutes and my “unrelated anecdote” just ate the entire post.  I think I’ll just leave this here and make the post that was originally gonna be today happen either later today or tomorrow.  What’s that, no readers?  You say you don’t mind?  Okay, good.

tl;dr eggs r tasty people r dumb.