Pan Love

Among my prized possessions is a collection of cast iron pans. The only one I can remember purchasing new is a double-burner griddle. A couple of small skillets were donated by my mother when I got my first apartment. I seem to recall that my smallest one, currently a spoon rest, followed me from a dorm room and may have begun its life in the early '70s as an ashtray. The large one I use to make my baked apple pancake was gifted to us in 1977 when the neurosurgery resident/juggler who lived on the second floor left for California, taking with him only what he could fit into his jeep. From the good Dr. Schell we also inherited a large Corningware casserole, an exact match to our wedding set and a piece we lacked. I roast things in the skillet my dad used to fry potatoes and eggs with fennel.

Cast iron pans have been fixtures of American cooking since colonial times. They were employed on open campfires as the settlers moved West and on chuck wagons to feed hungry cowboys on cattle drives. They were a staple of the American kitchen well into the 20th century and are renowned for their even heating, heat retention, and durability.

They don’t wear out. They can withstand very high heat. They are forgiving. They get better with age. (How many things can you say that about?)

A well-seasoned, well-cared-for pan is a joy. You get non-stick without the teflon. Cast iron can go from stovetop to oven without worry.  You can use it on your barbecue grill. You can turn a skillet upside down  and bake pizza on it.  Cast iron care is pretty easy, the pans come seasoned, and if an over-zealous kitchen helper scrubs off the seasoning, that can be remedied. You can’t break cast iron pans. Just don’t drop a big one! And remember that they stay hot for a long time. So be careful to use an oven mitt when you take a pan off the heat and a trivet when you set it down.

Most cast iron skillets are numbered on the handle, and nest to store easily. The numbers indicate  relative size, but do not reflect the cooking diameter. For example, my “Number 9” actually has a diameter of about 9.5”  Cast iron pans were manufactured in the USA by a number of different foundries until the 1950s. Those made by Griswold Cast Iron in Erie, PA (1865-1957) are highly prized; their collectors hold annual conventions.

One American company is still going strong – Lodge Cast Iron in South Pittsburg, TN, founded in 1896. Lodge is the oldest family-owned cookware foundry in the USA. Besides the traditional nesting skillets, griddles, and cornstick pans, it offers a number of new products reflecting America’s changing times. These include pizza pans, woks, and fajita sets. All the cast iron pans are made in the US, but the company also carries two lines of enamel cookware from China.

The company has been working hard to become more green. According to the Lodge website: “Lodge Manufacturing received the 1994 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Hazardous Waste Reduction: In 1991, Lodge President Henry Lodge replaced the cupola melting system with more environmentally friendly induction melt system. The result was that Lodge Mfg changed its status as a Large Quantity Generator of Hazardous Waste to Small Quantity Generator.” Lodge has also been working to find ways to reuse its foundry sand and to improve its rate of cardboard recycling. A product that was green for its long life and versatility is now even greener.

Back to my pans. Hardly a day goes by that I do not have a use for one of them — for melting butter, making pancakes, baking cornbread, frying an egg or some potatoes, roasting chicken and root vegetables. I cook a lot.

I am not ready to part with any of mine anytime soon. So, when my son set up his first place, I ordered from Lodge. I’ve heard that he uses the pan. I don’t think he is making cornbread yet, but he has plenty of years ahead. And I hope what the website says will come true for him: “When you choose Lodge Cast Iron Cookware, you’ve made a friend that will last more than a lifetime. The Lodge family appreciates your patronage and hopes that if this is your first piece of Lodge Cast Iron, it will be the first of many.” There was a recent recall of some QVC pans made for Paula Deen in China that shattered. I can’t guarantee it, but I don’t think that will happen with the ones from Lodge.

The last time I went to the gym I picked up a pretty recent Esquire magazine (December 2009), and discovered a wonderful article: “Does it Matter if It’s an Eighth of a Cup?: The Night Thomas Keller Came to My Kitchen,” by Ryan D’Agostino. Long story short, the author and his friend decide to prepare a meal from celebrated chef Thomas Keller’s most recent cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, and to invite Keller over to enjoy it. He agrees. They aren’t quite ready for him. Keller lends a hand. They all enjoy a great meal. And here is the important punchline. The author quotes a line from the cookbook (which sounds great by the way): “If you could only have one pan in your kitchen, [a cast-iron skillet] is the one I’d give you.”

So a cast iron pan IS the perfect gift. Thomas Keller says so! Remember that the next time you want to show your love.

Coincidentally, as I was wrapping this post, I caught a story in the Wall Street Journal about Joel Schiff, who lives in an 850-square-foot one-bedroom East Village apartment, along with the over 7000 cast iron items he has been collecting for decades. According to  Steven Kurutz, Mr. Schiff apparently came “to appreciate the permanence and craftsmanship of cast iron” after his other belongings were destroyed in a houseboat fire that left his cast iron pans unharmed. Mr. Schiff is widely respected as an authority on cast iron among members of KOOKS (Kollectors of Old Kitchen Stuff).

The world is full of strange and wonderful tales.

And clearly I am not the only one to have succumbed to pan love.

A Squash is a Berry; Shaw’s is No More

The phrase should perhaps be eat your fruits and fruits.

I had long known that tomatoes are a fruit, but somehow had never made the jump to winter squash. And not only is a squash a fruit; it is a berry. And it is not just a berry, but a pepo, a berry with a thick rind. Cucumbers, summer and winter squashes and melons are all pepos. Peppers, eggplants and bananas are just berries. 

Nor was I used to thinking of legumes (peanuts and beans) as fruits, but fruits they are. And most things we call “nuts” are actually fruits in the nut subcategory, but not almonds, which are drupes like cherries.

Do you have all this straight? It was a relief to learn that some “vegetables” are not fruits. But perhaps we should be calling them roots, shoots and leaves.

On the same day I was absorbing all this arcane knowledge, I also heard that my local supermarket, which I consider a great place to buy pepos and other fruits and vegetables, and where I discovered the parsnip, will be Shaw’s no more. Supervalu is divesting itself of all its Shaw’s stores in Connecticut. Most are being acquired by Stop & Shop, but no buyer has been found for the downtown New Haven store.

This is a blow to New Haven, particularly to the Dwight neighborhood, adjacent to Yale University. With its store on Whalley Avenue, Shaw’s is the only major chain with a presence anywhere near the downtown area. Many who live and work in the neighborhood do not have cars. It is about five miles away in any direction from Shaw’s to another store of similar size and quality.

It was quite an accomplishment when the Dwight Community Development Corporation succeeded in attracting Shaw’s to the neighborhood in 1998. Downtown New Haven had been without a major supermarket for years. Shaw’s became a place to shop, as well as a source of good neighborhood jobs.

I have chosen to shop at Shaw’s over its competitors. Its prices are fair. The store is clean and well-stocked. It is convenient. They have the best bananas around. Ask anyone. I am very sorry Supervalu has chosen to leave the state.

The developer of 360 State Street has promised to include a supermarket on the ground floor of the 500 unit apartment complex which is under construction in my ward. (There is a hefty penalty if he does not.) The footprint is not as large as Shaw’s, but the market will be close enough for me to walk there with a shopping cart. If an agreement can be reached, and the store is to my liking, I will have my grocery store.

But 360 State is a long walk from the site of Shaw’s, and a store at this location will not solve the problem for the people who live in the Dwight neighborhood, for the many residents who have jobs at Shaw’s, or for Yale students. Lower Whalley Avenue has already experienced the closing of Rite-Aid and Staples in the last few months, leaving empty retail space and parking lots and very few places to shop. For students without cars, The Yale Bookstore (Barnes & Noble) and Gourmet Heaven are the only convenient (albeit pricey) options.

Surely Shaw’s would not have remained in New Haven all these years without a reasonably good profit margin. I hope that one of the other chains can look beyond its usual suburban model to open a store in a city center. I am sure the City of New Haven and the Yale Office of New Haven and State Affairs are doing their best to find a buyer.

I hope they succeed. And, if they do, I promise I will give their pepos (and parsnips) a try.

Water from Fiji

I keep a running mental list of things my dad, who died in 1998, would never believe. I am quite certain that the success of FIJI Water would be one of them.

For months I have been curious about the bottled water for sale in my favorite lunch place. Yes, right next to the locally-conceived Honest Tea is FIJI Water, displayed in a refrigerator case that proclaims, “Yes, it really comes from Fiji.”

I went to Google Maps to calculate the distance from Fiji to New Haven, CT. The answer? Approximately 8000 miles!

I began to look a bit further, only to discover that FIJI Water has quite a story.

First, a little background on Fiji from the website of the US Department of State. The Fiji Islands (over 300 in number) lie in the South Pacific, approximately 3100 miles southwest of Hawaii and 1900 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. The population, currently around 832,000, of whom 327,000 are active in the labor force, is declining.

Formerly a British colony, Fiji became independent in 1970, and for 17 years was a parliamentary democracy. Since 1987 there has been a series of coups; the constitution was abrogated in 2009. The United States is among the countries that have imposed targeted sanctions on the illegal government.

For many years sugar and textile exports drove the economy, but neither industry is competing well in globalized markets. The most important manufacturing activities are the processing of sugar and fish. In recent years, growth in Fiji has been largely driven by a strong tourism industry. Since 2000 the export of still mineral water, mainly to the United States, has expanded rapidly.

This is a good place to begin the story of FIJI Water.

FIJI Water was founded in 1997 by Canadian businessman David Gilmour, owner of Fijian island Wakaya, on which he developed a luxury resort. Journalist Anna Lenzer recently reported in Mother Jones that in the early 1990s “Gilmour got wind of a study done by the Fijian government and aid organizations that indicated an enormous aquifer, estimated at more than 17 miles long, near the main island's north coast. He obtained a 99-year lease on land atop the aquifer…” In the same article Lenzer also stated that he company was initially granted tax-exempt status, to expire in 2008; it remains in effect today.

In 2005, American billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick became the new owners of FIJI Water. Lynda has set up a site to promote her book Rubies in the Orchard, on which the following information can be found. The Resnicks’ previous business successes include Teleflora, purchased in 1979 and now the world’s largest floral service, and the Franklin Mint, which they owned from 1985-2000. The Resnicks are also the “largest farmers of tree crops in the United States, with the nation’s largest orchards and processing plants for citrus, almonds and pistachios.” Lynda is largely responsible for marketing the benefits of pomegranates to the American consumer and then reaping success through her line of products, POM Wonderful. It should be no surprise that the PomQueen (as Lynda dubs herself) could do such an outstanding job selling water from Fiji to customers on the other side of the world.

The FIJI Water site weaves three tales:

TALE NUMBER ONE: WHY YOU NEED FIJI WATER
“Yes, FIJI Water really is from islands of Fiji… FIJI Water is the result of rainfall that fell long before the Industrial Revolution… FIJI Water's state-of-the-art bottling facility …literally sits right on top of an aquifer…So, until you unscrew the cap, FIJI Water never meets the compromised air of the 21st century…There's no question about it: Fiji is far away. But when it comes to drinking water, ‘remote’ happens to be very, very good. Look at it this way. FIJI Water is drawn from an artesian aquifer, located at the very edge of a primitive rainforest, hundreds of miles away from the nearest continent. That very distance is part of what makes us so much more pure and so much healthier than other bottled waters.”

Lynda Resnick has done her best to weave a convincing tale that water pumped from an aquifer on the edge of a remote rainforest is something that the health-conscious American consumer can not live without. And she has convinced many. FIJI Water is now the number one imported still water in the United States. The current Shopzilla price for a one pint bottle of FIJI Water is around $1.75. It would not take too long to see a payback on filtering and “bottling” your own.

TALE NUMBER TWO: WHY FIJI WATER IS GOOD FOR FIJI
FIJI Water employs “nearly 350 Fijians.” FIJI Water supports various philanthropic activities in Fiji, including donating royalties in 2008 of $1.3 million (representing 1.5% of gross revenues) for charity work in neighboring villages, creating the FIJI Water Foundation in 2007 (an investment of $600,000), and partnering with the Rotary Club and Pacific Water for Life “to bring clean water to 100 communities in Fiji this year.”

Note the irony. FIJI Water is bottling and exporting water from a country where much of the population lacks clean, running water. Is FIJI Water really saving Fiji as one reading the website might believe? Keep in mind that Fiji’s labor force is 327,000 and FIJI Water employs 350; FIJI Water’s advertising budget for 2008 was $10 million (as reported by Lenzer); and in 2000, villagers wielding spearguns and dynamite staged a take-over of the bottling plant, declaring that the land is sacred (also reported in Mother Jones.)

TALE NUMBER THREE: WHY DRINKING FIJI WATER IS GOOD FOR THE PLANET
On its FIJI Green site FIJI Water touts, among other initiatives, its partnership with Conservation International to become “carbon negative,” the energy savings measures for transportation of the water, and its various conservation projects in Fiji.

Laudable as these projects may be, just think about this for a second. There would be no need for carbon offsets if the company were not shipping water across the planet. For those who simply cannot drink tap water, we in New England have access to bottled water from aquifers relatively close by (Poland Springs and Belmont Springs, for example). If you live in New Haven, does buying water from Fiji make any sense?

In another ironic twist, FIJI Water was most recently in the news for its donation of 136,000 liters of bottle water to Haitian earthquake victims (7845 miles, not quite as far as it is to New Haven, but pretty far.)

I found myself shaking my head and wondering what other possibilities there might be for economic progress in Fiji when I received an email about Bees without Borders, started by the owner of Andrew’s Taste-Bud Bursting Local Wildflower Honey, a product I purchase at my local farmers’ market. Its mission is to "educate and train impoverished individuals and communities in beekeeping skills and the value of beekeeping for poverty alleviation." The founders have just returned from a trip to Fiji. A small step, but another option, and just maybe a better way to help the people of Fiji.

Here is my plan. Continue drinking tap water. Buy Andrew’s honey. Support his foundation. Help the people of Fiji. Help the planet.

Background information and statistics on Fiji from the US Department of State website unless otherwise noted.