What's for dinner?

Back during the holidays (I know, that was like, a lifetime ago), this awesome spoof on the Williams-Sonoma holiday catalog made its rounds on the interwebs. Check it out, especially if you need a good laugh to break up your Thursday. It's still really, really entertaining. Go ahead, I'll wait for you.

Hilarious, no?

Puts my need for a new griddle pan in perspective. Yup, I just said 'my need for a new griddle pan'. So now in addition to sounding super middle-aged, I sound super pretentious. Hey! It's not like I said 'a need for a new designer handbag' or 'a need to attend a Botox party'...

My griddle pan harkens back from the early 2000's. It's from Calphalon, non-stick, and I have made many, many batches of pancakes and quesadillas on it. Lately, though, it's losing some of its non-stick, signaling what I think is the retirement of this pan.

Now that I put a little more thought into what touches my body -- including what touches the food that goes into my body -- I want to do some research about cookware to see if there's a safe(r) version of non-stick anything.

The best-known version of non-stick -- DuPont's Teflon -- both revolutionized the category and then gave it something of a bad rep, what with more than a few pretty sketchy toxic chemicals found in the cookware coating. The main culprit is perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which the EPA describes as: 

"Companies use PFOA to make fluoropolymers, substances with special properties that have thousands of important manufacturing and industrial applications. PFOA can also be produced by the breakdown of some fluorinated telomers, substances that are used in surface treatment products to impart soil, stain, grease, and water resistance. PFOA is very persistent in the environment and has been found at very low levels both in the environment and in the blood of the general U.S. population. Studies indicate that PFOA can cause developmental and other adverse effects in laboratory animals."

I added the bold for emphasis, to point out that PFOA isn't just found in cookware, but in a huge variety of stain- and water-resistant products. That's greeaaaaaat. So I'm opening another Pandora's box here. The more I know, the less I want to. If you want to know more, check out this great Mother Jones piece back in 2007.

That new griddle pan won't be happening anytime soon. At least not until I have a better idea of which cookware companies use which chemicals. Is there even such a thing as a non non-stick griddle? I have a feeling this is going to take a higher-than-usual dose of skepticism. Stay tuned. 

Yours,
Jazzy