Wabi Nabe Cast Iron Pot

We love the one pot meals here – so simple, and so delicious when you get all the integrated flavors working together. This hand-poured cast iron pot is produced by ODLCO and done through kickstarter.com – pledges to purchase fund the purchase (you can even just pledge to support the Wisconsin-based company). So contribute to the economy by producing jobs helping this startup get this great little design made. Works indoors or out.

You choose how much to pledge – $150 or more will get you your very own pot.

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Eco healthy pots from Green Cooking Pots

Studies have shown that Teflon is, well, maybe not so good. Not for you and not for the environment. Stainless steel is good, but can be tricky to maneuver and requires more fat to cook without sticking. Cast iron is good (and may even be good for you), but is even more tricky than stainless. The other alternative, enameled pots, can be expensive (a la Le Crueset). This new line from Green Cooking Pots brings us safe, chemical free enameled pots at reasonable prices.

Green Cooking Pots is a small company owned by a couple of twins, women, Cafe and Mica, who care about good food and the environment.

We like the wok-like sides of their Skillet (pictured here). And the price: $98.

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One pot wonder: Donabe

The donabe pot is an earthenware pot that’s used for the clay pot style of cooking in Japan. Think tagine in Morocco or cazuela in Spain (or “hot dish” in Minnesota…). You get the idea: one pot cooking, Japanese style. In Japan, this style is called Nabemono and is usually don in a donabe pot over a flame, or even an induction burner (the clay has a high iron content so this will work!)

The types of dishes vary from soups to stews to porridges. Think salmon stewed in miso soup with vegetables, or rice with shiitake mushrooms garnished with fresh scallions, or udon in a warm broth with vegetables, or venison stew…you get the idea. Great winter foods. A number of sites are out there to find recipes:

• Mrs. Donabe’s Rustic Kitchen
• Making Nabe in my New Donabe
• Classic Donabe Recipes
• Tess’ Japanese Kitchen

These pots are even quite handy serving vessels to have around and a decent one will last forever (or maybe just centuries…) A bargain for under $30.

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Antique Guillard Copper Saucepan

Sur La Table is now offering antique cookware (as well as retro-cool seltzer bottles, salt shakers and other bygone acoutrements) that they find in Paris and flea markets and other various places. Of course these are one of a kind, so when they’re gone, they’re gone.

This particular pot (unsold as of this writing) was manufactured by Guillard, a copper manufacturer now defunct, that was renowned for it’s high quality cookware. Copper is a highly regarded metal because of it’s great conductivity… The downside is that, well, it’s toxic. Which they didn’t know then so much, but if you wanted to use it now, you would need to have it lined with tin.

Of course, Sur La Table can be a bit expensive, but there are some really cool things in this new marketplace – things that would be hard to find online and certainly hard to find short an antiquing trip to France (which isn’t a bad idea, either).

We would like to say that reusing is the ultimate environmental act, but given it’s been bought and shipped across the world, we can’t really be so pious. At least about these.

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