I watched Under the Tuscan sun this weekend...AWESOME MOVIE!

The kitchen is gorgeous with all the copper! I just hate having to keep the stuff shiny. So, my kitchen abounds in caste iron stuff. I couldn' cook without my big ole caste iron fry pan!

oops, that should have been cast not caste! Good lord.

pattie:

i have a whole cast iron set sitting in a cupboard. i'm afraid of the "seasoning" job. so there they sit. the copper's really no big deal to clean. as you can see, i don't do the full clean every use. they're due. when i wash them out, i just use "barkeeper's friend" on the outside. no big deal.

kath: it was "under the tuscan sun" that we got half-way through!!! dammit!! so we'll have to rent it from blockbuster or pay-per-view. gah.

Love your kitchen! Is the kitchen blog going to be a permanent thing? If so can I put a link to it under the Food Porn heading in the link space on my journal?

We use Netflix and really like it. We've only had a problem with one movie, and it was because they sent us the wrong one. It was labeled as one of the kids' movies so we gave it to them to watch upstairs; they came down asking if we were sure it was right. Turns out it was an R-rated horror flick. Ack! They didn't get any further than the menu screen, luckily. You should give them another try, maybe you just had an unlucky beginning.

I don't find it hard at all to season the stuff, and it does require a periodic seasoning. I just wipe the piece down with Crisco, put in a 250 degree oven for about an hour, turn off the heat and leave it in there. Just be sure to put a drip pan or aluminum foil under the piece, if you overseason with Crisco, you get some drip. One bad thing about cast iron, it is heavy and hard on electric elements. Really better designed for gas burners. And, certainly could not use on a fancy cook top.

I LOVE your kitchen! I'm a "kitchen person". I'm also a cinnabon person...YUM!

You have a great no... you have a bloody marvelous kitchen.

Pity you can't order DVD's from here - with the exchange rate you will get them for next to nothing.

We've had great luck with Netflix--just one movie has had a problem. And it's really good for us because the nearest video rental store is about 10 miles away and turning them back in was a real pain.

Your kitchen is awesome Stacey! WOW!

Sorry about Netflix, I absolutely LOVE it. We haven't had a one problem since we started with them a few months ago(which is surprising in itself). Do you think maybe the DVD player needs a cleaning out? Just a thought. I'd hate the thought of going back to Blockbusters again.

In my kitchen, we try to stay away from those pots and pans... they get in the way of the pizza boxes.

-d

I also just started Netflix. So far, things have been good for me... Hope it stays that way! :)

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with Netflix. I've been a member on and off for 3 years, and only had one bad disk.

i think we're gonna give it another try -- it sounds like our first experience was unusual.

So far so good on Netflix here!

I've been a Netflix subscriber for a few years. I was a charter member pretty much and then took a 1 year break cause I caught up on movies. They picked me up one year later without a hitch, all my info still saved. I have only had one instance where I couldn't finish a movie, Bagger Vance. I still havn't seen the ending. Usually a wipe down of the DVD is needed. Some older DVD players are not very forgiving as well. I've had 1 movie never reach me and 1 movie I returned never reached them. They just log it and send a replacement. No hassles. I live close to a distribution center so I can get a movie on one day, watch that night and return next day and have a replacement the next. I'm starting to run out of new releases to watch again.

We've gotten 20+ movies so far with no problem. That's really sad!

And your kitchen is incredible.