A Tale of Two Pans

I've gone a little nuts buying pans since falling to this addiction, and have had a hard time restoring "one per day" as was my agenda, especially since you guys have made me put away my Porter Cable sander.

I do have two that really needed nothing but light cleaning and decided to cook something in them today. Cast iron restoration is fun, but I needed to eat at some point. So ...

The Bad: I got me a nice ERIE #8 from a rummage shop with an already satiny smooth surface. It has a ring, and my cooktop is glass. So to offset the "fact" that you "can't cook in a ridged pan on a glass surface," as I read somewhere, I put in some bacon and turned the stove to medium, which is slightly higher than my usual, and then turned my back since it was of course the flush glass element would never heat the pan. Ten minutes later I smell bacon, the burning kind, and run back to the kitchen. The bacon that I expected to be still raw looked like it had been nuked. Worse, there was a dark spot on what had been a perfect cooking surface. I more or less got it to blend with the rest of the surface after washing and spraying some Pam and rubbing it well. Still, I feel like an idiot. Lesson: you certainly can cook in a ridged pan that is set upon a flush glass surface, Boy, howdy.

The Good: I also have a nice little Griswold #5, purchased with an already satiny surface with no gunk, no rust. I ran it through the lye and vinegar baths just for the heck of it and cooked two fried eggs in it this morning -- dab of butter and some cooking oil. They came out PERFECT, with no metallic taste, and they slid out of that pan and onto my plate quicker than you can say Teflon. :tasty:

As for scenario #1, well, live and learn! :frown:
 
Well, Rob, you've just learned Sharon's rule no. 1 for cooking: Do not turn your back on the stove! It'll mess up every time! Worse with a good pan than with one you don't care so much about, but a hassle anyway.
 
Not even for "just a minute"? Haha. I know. Thanks for the tip! And I shall mend my ways.

Also I have to wonder if the perfection of my eggs related to my staring fixedly at the pan the whole time.
 
[Also, I have to wonder if the perfection of my eggs related to my staring fixedly at the pan the whole time.]
Possibly, Rob. You know; mind over matter!:)
 
I have an induction cooktop and the pans I have with heat rings still work just the same even though someone told me they wouldn't unless the surface of the pan was in 'actual' physical contact with the surface. Apparently the ring isn't tall enough to matter.
 
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