after dinner sneeze

k says: I was perusing afterdinnersneeze, as I like to do when I’m too tired to do any more work for the night, but not yet ready for bed, and I saw the 2010 posting about Dutch ovens. I have no relevant information to share, no pros and cons lists, but instead, here below are my truest emotions about “my favorite pot.”

My favorite pot is our gray Le Creuset pot. It is gorgeous. It’s heavy. It’s shiny. I love cooking in it because it feels like you’re really cooking a real dinner. These days, dinner often consists of cereal, an apple and some cashews. But when we cook with the Le Creuset, it means we are cooking something special. Some of my favorite dishes have been cooked in this pot – cm’s pasta with butternut squash, perfectly browned conchas, braised chicken with vegetables, and of course “the good soup”. We used it to wow our judges in the famous Iron Chef battle, home edition, of 2009. (k and cm vs. t and g, Battle Carrot.) I’m sure the beauty of the pot itself bought us a couple points.

The truth is, it’s not a totally necessary pot. Most days we can get by with our other mediocre pots and pans. For many years, we did just fine without it. The year after graduating from college, cm and I and our two close college friends hosted a weekly dinner for our friends that still lived in the area. It was our first time learning how to cook, trying new recipes, and playing host. We called it “Sunday Dinner Series.” We stuck almost exclusively to recipes, poring through our first cookbook as well as trying our hand at our childhood favorite recipes. I remember Sunday Dinner Series fondly. It was the beginning of our love of cooking and eating with friends. Unfortunately, it fizzled off as we ran out of money…

Five years later, we were ready to own our first Le Creuset. cm and I went to Williams Sonoma after spending many months percolating on the idea, now wielding a gift card from cm’s parents. As we examined the wall of beauties, stacked up perfectly just like t said, an older couple started chatting with us and tried to convince us to buy an entire set of Le Creuset’s in one color. They were in the process of doing just that, as a wedding present for their son. Since a set costs many hundreds of dollars, we settled on our one pot… the one in the color that was on sale. It felt like a big day. I felt like a real grown up. We soon would have more visits to Williams Sonoma, and even purchase more Le Creusets, with the help of our wedding registry. But none would be more special than our first visit and our first Le Creuset purchase.