Matthew's Journal

A while ago I acquired a proper round-bottomed carbon-steel wok. It needs seasoning before use, and has thus sat unused for a while now while I fail to commit to doing so (in my usual "I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll screw it up" manner of failure).

There seem to be a number of opinions on how to do this.

Ken Hom says[0] to scrub the protective coating off (water and cream cleaner), dry, put on a low heat and rub 2tbsp of oil onto the inside; heat for 10-15m, wipe thoroughly (paper will blacken). Repeat wipe, heat, rub off until the paper comes clean.

The bag the wok came in says fill with water and boil for 10-15m then scrub off the coating (water and detergent or cream cleaner), wash and dry. Put a couple of tbsp of oil in the wok and heat - when warm, rub the oil round the inside of the wok with a paper towel, then heat gently for 15m. Or look up videos online.

The internet has many theories, including:

• repeated baking with low smoke-point oil in a very hot oven (I think the wooden handle could be removed on my wok)
  
• School of wok do a dry 'burn', then add a high heat oil for the second burn
  
• Serious Eats apply oil to the hot pan with a sacrificial dish-cloth (about 3 times)
  

...all of which is has left me confused as to the Right Way (and hence stuck not doing anything, which is daft); even WP is unclear. One blogger swears by flaxseed oil(!) and also repeated hot-oven baking.

Cleaning-wise, Ken Hom says to wash with water and no detergent, dry on the hob before putting away.

The wok bag says clean water, don't scrub. If you have to scrub, re-season

School of wok boil water in the work and scrape with a ladle, then dry on a hot hob.

Please provide advice, opinions, ...? [Please don't say "oh, just use a non-stick pan" :-) ]

[0] Ken Hom's Chinese Cookery, BBC books, 1984

We have a 3rd-generation Kindle, which I mostly use to read the Hugo shortlist each year; I find myself thinking it might be useful for novellas and other odds and ends I'd like to read without necessarily wanting to own a dead-tree copy of.

A recent half-price offer on a Kindle Paperwhite caused me to wonder if having an e-reader each might not be such a terrible idea, which then made me think whether the Paperwhite was the right e-reader or if I should consider alternatives. 30 seconds googlingDetailed research led me instead to the Kobo range, which seem to offer larger screens & storage (and more waterproofing) for less money.

Any opinions? I like the real buttons on the existing Kindle, and the fact I can just mount it as USB mass storage and put ebooks on it thus. I don't care about the lack of light (and like the fact it doesn't give off light, IYSWIM). I dislike that page-turning is a bit slow, that it's not running Free Software, and the tie-in to Amazon (though the fact I can feed it books over USB ameliorates that).