GETTING MY PAN SMARTS

When I got married 42 years ago I had no idea that you were supposed to actually take care of pots and pans. Heck, my mom’s pans were indestructible. Maybe a few missing handles, but they worked just fine.

When I started learning to cook, I got my kicks by putting red hot pans into the dishwater just to hear them sizzle. Stress relief, I guess. One day someone told me that pans warp when you do that. How should I know? My mother’s pans had always rocked on the burner. Weren’t they made that way?

In those early years, I found many ways to destroy pans. There’s a time span in which rice will bond to a pot permanently. Also, there’s a limit to how many times you can burn rolls on a non-stick surface.

I finally got smarter, and I rarely burn anything anymore. So why did my husband tell our guests last week that I “always burn the bread.” You know, he’d better watch out because there’s one more way to destroy a frying pan!