This looks good. Thank you so much!

Hello! I have half a hog in the freezer and would like to cook one of the hams. A friend ordered the meat and is out of town so I don't have the farmer's contact info (lesson here).

I have never attempted ham before and am, honestly, an inexperienced and inconsistant cook. But that is slowly changing (thanks mostly to this site and some good recipes). The ham is about 6 lbs, and looks and smells lovely, but I have no idea how it was cured or how to cook it. It seems it was cured with the bacon -- they smell very similar. It looks like the skin was removed and the meat is a dark raspberry-pink color. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Nosh has meaning. How is it pretentious? It's Yiddish. You don't "meet for a light" nosh (that would sound pretentious!). You "go for" a nosh or "have" a nosh or you nosh "on something". Oh, wait... has nosh been stolen by pretentious foodies? Now that would be a bummer.

Anyway, FOODIE. Horrible word.

Most people can't afford to appreciate that business model. (Consumers, I mean.)

I have used Bob's Red Mill unbleached white pastry flour with more success than hard flours. Gold Medal all-purpose unbleached white works as a good second choice. If you're using American bread flour for European style breads, try the ones with less protein. King Arthur flours are very hard (I've found) and (for me) their bread flours are really just suited for bagles or pretzles.

Thanks, all. I think I'll sand it. I wish I had known about the tomato sauce thing...

Hi. I'm new here and a pretty inconsistant cook (but I love food and am improving). Anyway, I inherited my grandmother's cast iron pans and didn't know better and used them to simmer tomato based sauces. The acid ruined the 70-some year seasoning and now black bits of carbon are flaking off.

Please don't say, "Just continue to use it."

I don't want to eat the little black bits of carbon.

Would I ruin these pans if I sanded off the flakey stuff?