Leaving The Light OnBasements are useful things.
I recently bought a wok. We have a number of fancy boutique stores around here, but I did not go to any of those. They are nice stores for toys, and occasionally tools (expensive, though!), but with a little work and a bit of luck I've found that one can do much better. Consider the factory seconds sales that go on twice a year a bit south of here. When one is buying a prop or a toy, one can afford the luxury of how a thing looks; when one is hunting tools it is of far greater import to get a thing that works. I know many, many people that have outfitted their kitchens with a professional compliment of insanely useful cookware because of those sales, and because they get to buy things that work. And then go home and use the hell out of them. I will happily raise my hand as one of those. So: I bought a wok. I avoided the toy stores, and went nosing around for a closer source.
I've got a fair choice, there; I started looking in the calm back shelves of various Asian groceries, and managed to find many, most larger than what I could comfortably use. I ended up with a small (12 inch) steel wok for ten bucks, and a ring upon which for it to sit for two. I brought them home, and pondered.
The wok had no handle; there was a bit of steel cylinder where a handle should go, but none there. Well, down to the basement! I found bit of doweling in the scrap pile, cut it down, and thumped it home. It was still wobbly, so I cut some shims from some old redwood planking, and tapped them in next to the dowel. With a hole through the other end and a bit of cord through the hole, I was set. Back upstairs!
The wok ring posed a bit of difficulty; it would not sit well on the burner guards, and slid all over the place without. Back down to the basement! After a bit of work with the tin snips and the Dremel, the wok ring had notches to lock into place on the guards. Back upstairs!
It's a success, so far. The wok is a bit too far above the flame, but I can stomp back downstairs and fix that, at some point. The thing is a little side heavy now, but no worries. It presents itself on the wall, I suppose, as ugly to the eye: the underside is already coloring from flame, and the handle is utterly pedestrian, and the cord it hangs on is, at best, meek.
But it works.
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