Oh hell no. Nonstick pans have to be babied - plastic spatulas, gentle sponges, and they get worse with time. Cast iron you almost cannot destroy, and gets better and better with use. Scrub away with chainmail, scrape with a metal spatula, it doesn’t care. Too hot? Doesn’t care.

You have those prices reversed though. My cast iron collection, as noted further down, cost less in total than my one really good stainless steel pan, and guess where some of that cast iron was purchased? For $10 at Walmart, LOL. And at thrift stores and Target.

I use cast iron for most of my stovetop cooking, but I’m sure it’s because my cooking style evolved around them, they were so cheap and absolutely the best pans I could afford. They become nearly nonstick, can go from stove to oven to grill, even fire. So for something like $5-20 each I accumulated a set over time, and I love them. We do wash with soap, dry right away, it doesn’t kill the surface. Now I have some money for pans, we do have one gorgeous stainless All-Clad skillet I call the “stick skillet”, my kids like it. But in terms of PRICE to quality, cast iron is where it’s at. That one All-Clad pan cost almost as much as all my cast iron put together.

What a benevolent view of rich people. Not sure I share it. Some subset of them probably fit this mold but plenty got rich wrecking the environment, deferring and externalizing costs that ought to have been borne by the business. Not leaving a better world for others to enjoy. So they extracted wealth from society and instead of that $ going towards mitigation of those damages they pass it to their kids and leave the cleanup for the rest of us.

I still don’t get it. So, he benefits from society, then the ethical thing to do is to set up his own family not the society he benefits from?

To a wife of that time, I understand - that is someone who did unpaid labor for decades so that he could have a career. So that money, yes she helped earn it.

I dunno, something about the whole system offends me. Taking more than you need, then directing the excess to your own kids. If literally every family could do it, sure. But how it works now just attenuates inequality.

I wholeheartedly agree with that - what we need is not a system of generational wealth being passed down particular families, but an economic system that spreads it out better.

Yeah but how did they get it, and who will get it when they die? It’s like a feedback loop.

My mom just wanted to make enough to spend it over her lifetime, and that seems fair to me. She got nothing from her parents and had to support her own mom in her old age, and didn’t want to cost us anything.

I would argue that inheritance is a huge driver of inequality. I have gotten small amounts from the estate of my dad’s parents (my dad died when I was 16) and a childless relative and even those amounts jumped us ahead some, I can imagine what some huge amount unearned would do - but it’s just that. Unearned.

I found corn broth really improves the vegan dough. You can use cobs to make it, and save the corn for something else. Corn cobs & an onion.

Me too! So flavorful. I don’t do bone broth exactly, can’t get them that clean. But there are some in my freezer right now waiting.

My kids have asked for tamales every year since I made them for Christmas about ten years ago, but I am not yet rested up from that batch. Even though we had a tamalada and they helped wrap them, the days ahead making tamale dough (two versions because we have vegans) and fillings (several versions because, again, vegans) it was exhausting. I think it will be either gumbo or oxtail soup this year, and a big pot of beans.

Whew, that’s good news. My MIL always just buys a bucket of Manteca but I don’t like to do that either.

Not an answer for you right now, but I just make lard whenever we get a big hunk of pork, I get the one with a bone and skin cut the skin & fat off and render it and it’s quite a project but makes enough for my purposes though the year, I don’t use it often. I wouldn’t expect a shop to do that for me for any amount I’d be willing to pay!

That is the way we had birthday parties too, and they are the best. Invite the whole family not just the kid. Nobody HAS to drink, and I didn’t because hosting, but it’s more hospitable to have adult beverages available. Often a “fancy drinks” area for the kids too, with colorful non alcoholic drinks and garnishes for them to create their own drinks.

So, so much better than a house full of kids all the same age. Kids running around in packs, adults chilling.

Ha! Yes once we were working extra days for an audit - I try to work in the office only and leave my laptop there, had worked Monday though Saturday, long hours, took Sunday off, the boss of my boss yelled at my boss (who was a devout Christian) because I left my laptop at the office. He told me and I looked him straight in the eye and said “I don’t work on Sundays” and he absolutely backed me up.

But now that upper management have families, in general the flexibility does run in both directions. Most consider it a benefit to be able to work remotely, I’m sort of an outlier in that way (because the office is so close to my home, the space there is a benefit to me).

But yeah pretty close - people are working today until the power goes out.

Yes, “off with pay” is the appropriate work status. My work is actually pretty flexible with us, I just hate working from home now because I have to drag everything out and set it up somewhere, particularly bad for a storm because everything from outside is also stuffed in the house.

Here they close the office and say to work remotely from wherever you are. Which strikes me as worse. Like, if my power goes out or home floods I am not going to take my laptop and find a co-working space at a shelter. If it’s bad enough we shouldn’t drive it’s likely bad enough we shouldn’t work.

One of our coworkers was off this week to be married yesterday. I guess it will be a good story someday.

I hesitate to say this out loud, but mid-50s and nothing hurts yet, except the migraines I’ve gotten since teenage years.

Knees last if you take care of them. Back lasts if you take care of it and are lucky, and don’t get fat, and are lucky, and don’t work a physical job, and are lucky.

Stretch. Exercise. Don’t overeat.

Hello, world!