I spent all this money on Martha Stewart's stainless steel frying pan and....

[lissener]

@Tomcat

You can also season the pan, but that only helps a bit. Two ways to season, with oven or just on the grill.

Oven: Heat the oven up to 500F+. Coat inside of pan with cheap cooking oil (do not use olive oil) and stick in the oven. Open windows and turn on vent. Wait until the smoke clears, then turn off the oven. Let the pan cool down inside.

Burner: Turn to highest setting. Coat pan with cheap cooking oil (do not use olive oil). Leave on the burner. Open windows and turn on vent. Wait until the smoke clears.

What you will be left with is a black coating on the inside that pretty much resembles plastic. You might have to season it twice to get an even coating. The bottom will be darker than the sides (sometimes the sides don’t turn black at all). Don’t scrub or use a brillo pad when cleaning. Just get the big stuff off.

Seasoning will help, but it won’t be perfect.

I sold my stainless to my friend who owns a restaurant. I buy teflon pans every year or two and just live with replacing them when they get scratched. They work great, no problems, and plastic spatula’s and spoons are almost as good as metal ones these days.

-Tcat

I prefer lower temperatures for seasoning an iron pan. I’ve had pans aquire an horrible burnt-oil taste if I season it at too high a temp.

But I never buy new, shiny pans and then season them. I’ve gotten all my cast iron stuff from garage sales and second-hand stores. That probly makes all the difference.

[UncleBeer]

@Martin Hyde

And currently there’s been a lot of scaremongering in the media indicating that non-stick pans are dangerous health-wise.

Only if you’re a parrot.

The health hazards to humans seem to be quite low from normal use of non-stick cookware. There are other—admittedly more serious—potential hazards if you happen to work with PFC’s (PerFluorinated Chemicals), such as polytetrafluoroethylene (or PTFE, commonly known by the trademark name "Teflon). These hazards are mostly for persons who encounter PFC’s in large quantities in a factory in their more unstable states before they’re applied to cookware and cured. Or if you live in a community where PFC’s may have been dumped and entered the water supply, there’s some risk. But you’re almost certainly in no danger from normal cooking use. Unless, as I said, you’re a parrot.

[Scylla]

@lissener

Heh heh. All you kids understand this is a joke, right? This is a very bad idea and has the potential to involve a charred black hole where your house used to be. So only do this if you’re at Scylla’s house, K kids?

Watchoo talkin’ 'bout, Willis?
It’s perfectly safe, and certainly a lot safer than frying with hot oil.

You don’t get a fire charring off the leftover crusties in a pan. You get smoke. Hence, the vent.

[Scylla]

@UncleBeer

Only if you’re a parrot.

The health hazards to humans seem to be quite low from normal use of non-stick cookware. There are other—admittedly more serious—potential hazards if you happen to work with PFC’s (PerFluorinated Chemicals), such as polytetrafluoroethylene (or PTFE, commonly known by the trademark name "Teflon). These hazards are mostly for persons who encounter PFC’s in large quantities in a factory in their more unstable states before they’re applied to cookware and cured. Or if you live in a community where PFC’s may have been dumped and entered the water supply, there’s some risk. But you’re almost certainly in no danger from normal cooking use. Unless, as I said, you’re a parrot.

Not exactly true. If you heat teflon to the point of vaporization is makes a really scary deadly toxic gas.

Not likely in the kitchen, but keep that shit away from you’re welding gear.

[lissener]

@Scylla

Not exactly true. If you heat teflon to the point of vaporization is makes a really scary deadly toxic gas.

Not likely in the kitchen, but keep that shit away from you’re welding gear.

I have a bird, so it may be overkill, but I open all windows and doors whenever I burn anything. Picturing a canary in a coalmine. Although my bird’s no canary, I figure better safe than sorry. I also once had three nightingales die within about 15 minutes of each other, with no discernible cause. I can only assume that there was something blowing in the windows that day that I could neither see nor smell. Thus my paranoia about fumes and birds.

[Scylla]

@lissener

I have a bird, so it may be overkill, but I open all windows and doors whenever I burn anything. Picturing a canary in a coalmine. Although my bird’s no canary, I figure better safe than sorry. I also once had three nightingales die within about 15 minutes of each other, with no discernible cause. I can only assume that there was something blowing in the windows that day that I could neither see nor smell. Thus my paranoia about fumes and birds.

That’s good paranoia. It doesn’t take much to take them down.

3 birds in 15 minutes? That’s quite a mystery. 'Prolly not anything toxic in the air, though. Blowing in through the window on a windy day, it would be difficult to get any kind of concentration. A still day, maybe.

If you kept the birds below ground level, you might have something like propane gas, which pools. Other than that, not much.

More likely, there was a large temperature difference when you opened the window and the shock of the temp change took them down. Likelier still though is a contaminant in their food or water.

(we used to have conures out the wazoo.)

[lissener]

@Scylla

That’s good paranoia. It doesn’t take much to take them down.

3 birds in 15 minutes? That’s quite a mystery. 'Prolly not anything toxic in the air, though. Blowing in through the window on a windy day, it would be difficult to get any kind of concentration. A still day, maybe.

If you kept the birds below ground level, you might have something like propane gas, which pools. Other than that, not much.

More likely, there was a large temperature difference when you opened the window and the shock of the temp change took them down. Likelier still though is a contaminant in their food or water.

(we used to have conures out the wazoo.)

Nope, all those considered and rejected. The only theory that I can’t disprove is that someone was spraying insecticide or something in the neighborhood. Will never know.

[Cat_Whisperer]

I was killing dandelions with a dandelion bar last summer, with (I thought) the proper precautions, and when I finished, I came inside, had lunch, went to the bathroom and puked it up (and I never puke). My point is that things can be a lot more toxic than we expect them to be.

[lissener]

Ha!