That’s just enough to buy my wife and I ice cream cones at the best place in town and leave enough of a tip that we don’t feel like we’re being cheap. Date night sorted!

Depends on why/how my needs are being met I suppose. If this is a post-scarcity situation where everyone’s needs are met and no one has to work, I’d probably keep at my current job. I install and repair nurse call systems (the buttons you push in a hospital to tell the staff you need help) I mostly enjoy the work and someone is going to have to keep doing it. I live in a town with a huge hospital and could easily keep busy without leaving town.

If this situation where only my own basic needs are met and not everyone else’s, I wouldn’t keep going to that job. Management is kind of a pain and they can certainly afford to train someone who needs the work. I’d still fix whatever kind of shit I knew how to because honestly, I love working with a wrench but, I’d be doing it freelance at that point. I’d probably start by knocking on the doors of local machine shops, fixing machine tools and lasers was more fun than nurse call and if I wasn’t tied to one specific brand, I could probably keep busy without driving 4 hours a day (I quit that job because I was tired of travel). If that took off, I’d try to turn it into a business and train someone to pick up the slack so I could still take the occasional vacation without leaving regular customers hanging. If that wasn’t enough to keep even just me busy, I’d probably start asking around about other random shit that needed to be fixed. Lots of people deal with broken shit because they can’t afford to fix it and if I was only looking to stave off boredom, not having to make a profit, I could probably get it done affordably.

Pretty similar here. First time I saw a CNC mill run I was immediately hooked. I used to work as a field service tech for a CNC machine tool distributor and I can honestly say that I absolutely loved the work. You drop into some random factory, spend between 3hrs and a week fixing it and then probably never see the exact same issue again. It’s mentally engaging but almost never tedious or repetitive. You can get stuck working late or even spending a night out of town with almost no notice but, I like things a bit unstructured so for me that wasn’t a big deal. Also, I’m problematically introverted so for me the field service gig was perfect. I got to work alone most of the time but I was also forced to interact with complete or relative strangers virtually every day which is good for me because if I can avoid people as much as I’d like, I get a little weird.

So, while in think there are certainly fair criticisms to be made of allowing patents on plants, the paper you linked is kind of just low quality fear mongering. It’s heavy one scare tactics and light on facts. I wouldn’t let anything in this paper keep you up at night without verifying it through a more reputable source.

To try to answer your questions though;

1. I really don’t understand why you think it wouldn’t be. There are some sources recommending that boliological waste made up of the GMOs themselves be sterilized before leaving lab conditions but if you eat a GMO and it passes through your digestive track there will be few if any living GMO cells remaining. Particularly in the case of peppers, mammals’ digestive tracts will destroy pepper seeds. That’s why they’re spicy, it’s ironically a defense mechanism to keep us mammals from eating them.

2. At any rate, 1is kind of a moot point because the paper you linked clearly states that wild peppers were cross bred with commercial peppers. That’s very traditional plant breeding, no mention of GMOs. Given the blatant fear mongering in the rest of the paper, I’d be floored if they missed a chance to scare people about GMOs in these peppers. So unless the peppers you’re asking about are different from the ones in the paper, I’d say they’re definitely not GMOs. Also, I don’t believe there are any GMO peppers on the market at present.

3. The short version is this. A company, let’s say Pioneer seed, patents a breed of corn that has, let’s say increased stalk strength for windstorm prone areas. A farmer buys and plants those seeds, sells the resulting crop. The only difference from heirloom seeds is that the farmer is legally prohibited from using that crop as seed corn and selling that crop.

4. So in principle, there isn’t really an impact on society from patented seeds. In practice, some of the patent holders have been overly aggressive with there enforcement. IMHO, this is a patent enforcement issue not an issue with the parents themselves. I don’t know about Europe but I know that here in the US there is a problem with dubious patents being approved and enforced but again, that’s patents as a whole not just seed patents. At this point I’d be more worried about what happens without seed patents. Nobody is going develop seeds except universitys which (at least here in the US) are criminally underfunded. Effectively, our crop technology would stagnant without serious increases in public University funding which I’m a huge supporter of but sadly, can’t imagine happening in my lifetime.

I hope I’m not coming off as an asshole here. Just trying to answer your questions honestly.

I’m not sure.

IMHO, the cast iron wouldn’t be too bad maintenance wise once you got it well seasoned and learned how to use it but, that takes some time so it might be more fussing around than you’d like for the first several months. And even then, you’ll probably still want a non-stick around for some recipes. The stainless sounds like it might be what you’re looking but, I’m not well versed with that. The one time I tried it, the food stuck so bad that I never tried it again but, all the recommendations I’ve read about it since then make me think that was probably user error.

So the cleanup on enameled cast iron is super easy. Some manufacturers (LeCruset for sure, probably a few others) even bill them as dishwasher safe.

The two big problems for what you’re asking for are that they’re not going to hold up well to metal utensils and, they’re really not anything resembling non-stick. I always use mine for pan sauces because the burnt on bits really add something when you delglaze them into a sauce. As far as something delicate like fish or eggs, you’re gonna have a bad time.

I think they’re a great addition to almost any kitchen but, they’re far from a universal pan.

Don’t spread outdated information.
The only thing this does is intimidate people from using cast iron at all and that’s just a shame.

Yeah, I think this was my biggest issue when I started using cast iron. I never had much luck getting it actually clean without soap and it definitely showed in my cooking. I eventually got some better advice and started having much better results. Now my CI is my go to eggs every weekend and afterwards, I throw it in the dishpan with everything else. As long as you don’t soak it, you’re fine. I think the soaking thing is a big part of why a lot of manufacturers still recommend against soap and water. It’s easier to tell people to not use soap and water than it is to explain the nuance of “wet it, don’t soak it” and “gently wash, don’t scrub into oblivion”.

So funny story. The workhorse of my kitchen is a cheap-ass enamel Dutch oven that my wife impulse bought at a grocery store 4 or 5 years before we moved in together. After we got married, I decided to get her a LeCruset replacement for our anniversary the year that cheap one bit the dust. We’ve lived together ten years as of this summer and I still haven’t had to shell out for the Lecruset. We use that thing at least twice a week, maybe more in the winter months and this thing shows no signs of quitting. At this point we’re so attachted to it that when the enamel does go, I’ll probably drill holes in it and keep it as a flower pot.

Seconding the notes in enameled cast iron. I have some and I love it to death but it’s not great as general use, is nothing resembling non-stick and most importantly for OPs question, it’s fragile as glass (because it’s literally covered in glass). Metal utensils will lead to scratches and chipping of the enamel and once the enamel chips, it’s trash unless you want to risk having glass in your food.

I’m also curious about your carbon steel though. I was under the impression that carbon steel pans were nearly as fussy with seasoning as cast iron. Is that not the case?

I’ve started using ghee a lot lately. Never thought to try making my own. Might have to try it now.

Yeah, I’ve read so many reviews that talk about Lecruset like it’s non-stick and I’ve never found mine to be that way. I mostly use mine for making pan sauce (can’t beat this one for sausage gravy IMHO) or stuff that simmers a good long while. This goulash for example simmers for like an hour. The hamburger stuck pretty bad while I was browning it but after the simmer with the tomatoes and everything else in, it all came out clean and the burnt stuff on the bottom gives the whole dish just a hint of charred flavor which I’m personally a big fan of.

But yeah, for something like fish or steaks where you need stuff to come off in a single piece, I’m reaching for my lodge or even the wife’s non-stick. I think I’d get dressed and go out for breakfast before I’d try to make eggs in my enamel skillets.

Pretty much what ours are for too. If I’m going to let a tomato sauce simmer for a couple hours or make a gravy, I’m reaching for the enameled stuff.

So my wife lived in Waco 15 years ago and bought a cheapo enameled DO at the grocery store. Her mom liked it and bought herself one there too. Two years later, the enamel on her mother’s was cracked and peeling. Wife bought her a replacement. Two years later, same thing. Meanwhile, the original one my wife bought has been the workhorse of her kitchen for 15 years and the only chips it has are exterior ones from damage during cross country moves. I’ve often wondered if that company’s quality control sucked and we just got lucky or if my MIL was that hard on them.

Is there a trick to getting stainless to release food in a reasonable way? I’ve tried it a couple times and whatever I cook ends up feeling like it’s epoxied on. I assume it’s a me problem since so many people speak positively about it.