My name is Dan and I'm a kitchenwares addict.
I am obsessed with buying bowls and plates. Coffee mugs with the perfect handles are my passion. I will creep through endless stalls in antique malls in the hopes of finding a rusty cast iron skillet that I can strip clean and re-season, slowly and with tender loving care.
My mother is faithful to Fiestware, and I do share her enthusiasm for the colors and the colors and oh my the colors. But I don't tell her I cheat on my Fiesta with other brands. I even (gasp!) keep them in the same cabinet. Although I do keep them on separate shelves. There's no need to flaunt such indiscretions and make everyone nervous by allowing different ceramic gene pools to mix with each other and touch.
I should point out the fact that my love for all things kitchen is ridiculous. I am not a good cook, despite my best efforts to prove otherwise. Other than my few specialties, I can't seem to get the knack for finding recipes that my skills will do justice. I scorch instead of sauté, my baked goods are baked but not good, and I have yet to make a chicken with white wine sauce that doesn't make my tongue crawl to the back of my throat as if it's running away in fear. I'm not dead yet, so I'm not poisoning myself, but my cooking is merely sustenance, not cuisine.
But who cares? Cooking is fun. Try, try again.
Also, my kitchen is small enough that I can stand in one place and just spin around, and I reach all counter surfaces. I have no space for all this junk. I don't have my gas turned on, so instead of using my lovely stove/oven, I use a toaster oven and electric burners (the burners placed on top of the stove, of course). But never mind that. I can accomplish anything a real stove/oven can produce, as I have kitchen gadgets lined up along the span of my counters, tools of every purpose and some of purpose that I know not. The Breadman Pro does make good egg bread, I will say that. But anyway--in terms of cups and plates, I literally have so many dishes that I can't put them all away. Some dishes must always live in the dish rack next to my sink. I can put them into a cabinet when I take something else out from somewhere. I blame the wine glasses, which take up so much space. And I don't even drink wine. (They were a gift! Don't judge me.)
Alas, to the real reason behind this post: we lost a member of our family recently. A Signature Housewares mini-crock jumped from my soapy hands and cracked into pieces, never to hold anything within its perfectly glazed confines again. Seriously, I bought four of these little pots--
--this is one of the surviving siblings--and they are the greatest little guys in my kitchen. I start a big pot of Beef Bourgingnon in my enameled cast iron, but then I divide it up into the four little Signature crocks to bake, and 90 minutes later it's PERFECT. If I use anything else, it cooks and cooks and cooks and it's just good. But these things, I don't know the magic they work beneath their concentric-circled lids, they make everything better. And considering the fact that most of the food I make is barely edible at best, I need to keep running with what works. These pots work for me. I love them as much as any person can love a piece of ceramic cookware.
So imagine my horror at my broken pot. I have searched everywhere for a replacement--the pot I killed was a lovely aqua/turquoise color--and I even went to the corporate web site, but no. Nothing. Can't find them anywhere.
It's an obsession, I admit. But there's a void in my display cabinet, and it keeps me awake at night. I know there's a replacement pot out there somewhere, ready to jump into action and make my sauces and stews.