Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Frying Pan

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My best frying pan comes from Woolworth’s in Georgetown, Washington D.C. We were moving there some 30+ years ago, and stayed in the Georgetown Dutch Inn until we had found a house.
This was our first encounter with the United States, and it was very different from what we had expected. Old houses with attractive fronts, small shops and restaurants. No sidewalk cafés, however. They only came later, and we missed them sorely in the warm weather. Clyde’s, the restaurant where we ate most often, served hamburgers, of course, but also Reuben sandwiches, enormous stacks of slices of toast with meat and sauerkraut, held together with a cocktail stick – if I remember correctly. After a while we got bored with eating out every night, and that is when I bought the pan.
In the hotel we lived in a suite: living room with kitchenette, bedroom, bathroom, all three provided with a telephone. Especially the one in the bathroom was subject to much ridicule. The kitchenette was rather well equipped in machinery: a four burner electric stove, oven, and a dishwasher that the maid would daily run full cycle for our two glasses. I quickly learnt to wash them by hand.
The pan came in handy. It was a medium sized cast iron frying pan, which cooked us omelettes, sauces for spaghetti and stir-fried vegetables.
It still does, better than any of the others, even its big and small brothers!

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