You’ll see a photo of my hands stir-frying in the November issue of Cooking Light Magazine with the caption, “The hands and wok of Grace Young, America’s most passionate advocate of carbon-steel and traditional thin cast-iron woks as the agents of soulful food and flavor.” The piece is called “7 Simple Ways to Become a Better Cook.” I was the expert consulted on the section “Use the Right Metals.” Scott Mowbray the Editor and Ann Pittman the Executive Food Editor wrote the piece and it’s refreshing to have the truth about cooking pans intelligently addressed. “…slick surfaces like Teflon and the new ceramics—which are generally not meant to be heated to high temperatures—isolate food from the properties of metal that build the deepest flavors in cooking, especially healthy cooking. Nonstick is great but for a lot of dishes, we need to harness the full power of certain metals.” For more than 2000 years, the wok has been the essential tool of the Chinese kitchen. Kudos to Cooking Light for honoring the old-fashioned carbon-steel wok. I am beyond proud to see my wok full of scrumptious Chinese Burmese Chili Chicken, showing off its gorgeous 20 year plus patina.
