Anger Burger

It is possible that the reason you are sad about cooking is because your cooking implements suck.

Like most everyone, I started out with some hand-me-down pans. Also like most everyone, those already-old pots and pans suffered through many years of rough cooking, being dropped, inappropriate scrubbing and general tragedy.  But as I approach my 14th year of living on my own, I find myself trying not to take my slowly accumulated and now-functional kitchen items for granted.  Take this All Clad griddle pan – brilliant!  I mean, totally indispensable.  Grilled cheese, crepes, fried eggs, not to mention that its my only non-stick coated pan, so anything I want to fry without oil (see above “grilled” onions for enchiladas) gets me reaching straight for the griddle pan — and more importantly, realizing what total shit I was trying to cook on before.  At $50 it’s not exactly cheap, but I use it several times a week and it is not a duplication of anything else I own.

I was thinking about this today because of a long and agonizing decision to buy what I consider to be an overly expensive and redundant cooking item: a tabletop griddle.

Those little peppers are non-spicy Japanese shishito peppers, which are TASTY just with salt.

First, a backstory that I’m certain Mike will want me to share: I have a moratorium on kitchen appliances.  This isn’t so much a consumerism issue as much as a chronic and lifelong apartment-renter issue: my kitchen doesn’t have any additional storage.  I have no counter space.  We already have an additional purchased kitchen “island” table pushed up against a wall for a work station.  Our current apartment has no closets.  We don’t own a microwave.  And yet, I find myself thinking about much we love a simple meat and veg grill, where I end up eating mostly onions and Mike ends up eating mostly meat.  So we took the plunge and bought it.

I rationalized it like so: we love the food (either “teppanyaki” or “yakiniku” depending on who is talking and whether or not they think that “grilling” is only done over coals) and we love the ease of it.  I can prepare the vegetables and meat in under 10 minutes, and even though it’s hot out, with the windows open and the fan on, I didn’t feel like I’d cooked over the stove all evening.  In the winter, I’m sure we’ll appreciate the warmth.  There’s just one problem: where the fuck will I store this behemoth? And the answer is, I have no idea.  Right now the vote is: wrapped in a garbage bag and stored sideways next to the stove.  I’m sure that will look fancy.  I guess we’re just going to have to move.

But!  I don’t care, because: okonomiyaki.  More tomorrow!