Since school's over (Neural Networks final last night), I decided to clean up my kitchen and cook tonight. That's the first really decent meal I've fixed since I moved into my house in November. It's been depressing me that I couldn't sit down and cook a really nice meal.
Tonight I dug out my old wok which has been in a box since 1998. A real, honest to goodness, stirfry with nothing special, but it's the best meal I've had in a while. Unfortunately that wok never really was that good, and I think I was injesting teflon.
Way back there, we tried to find a real steel wok, but gave up. Everything was either coated in something or was stainless steel. But back when we were searching (pre-1996), we didn't have what I have today: google. It's amazing how I'm always remembering something I always wanted to know or find before I discovered the Internet. Now I can always find what I want.
So, the second hit on "wok" was The Wok Shop located in San Francisco's Chinatown. I figured a steel wok would run me a lot of money, but it turns out they were $15!. I clicked through the first page of links and the sponsored ads and didn't find a deal that good anywhere else, nor did I find a place that seemed as authentic. So, there's a carbon-steel wok headed straight to my front door.
Life is good!
Perhaps, if you want something simple, like a plain steel wok.Life is good!
I have a decent amount of fun with The Hunt: seek out interesting little shops and ask around for the obscure items you really need in your kitchen. It took me 10 years, but I eventually did find a simple Maté cup in Vancouver, BC (T, the tea shop on Broadway). They even had roasted Yerba Maté (but not the authentic-yet-inexpensive-and-easy-to-find kilo bags from Argentina, but something packaged in-house). Not that I have a Maté fixation or anything, but the next time I'm entertaining South Americans, (or have a craving for mateine), I'm set.
It's not the nicest Maté cup, but it works. And it'll probably take another 10 years to find something nicer.
On the other hand, I've been looking for a hand-hammered copper[*] ibrik for about as long. Google doesn't turn up anything for that (at least in English). Brass and steel-plated ibriks are quite easy to find. Rumor has it that the hand-hammered copper ones are reasonably easy to find in Turkey and the southern ex-Soviet republics. So if any of you folks are going to be travelling in/near/through Turkey, drop me a line!
*: I think the conducitivity of copper does make a difference here. That, and when I do eventually find it, it'll make a good story.
