A Rescue

Look! I found filthy Le Creuset; bought it for $3.

He's little, only 2-quarts but I have coveted Le Creuset for far too long to pass up even a small version. He was found at The Bins, also known as the As-Is Bins or the Goodwill Outlet; a cavernous warehouse space filled with waist-height troughs of junk where equally sordid folks (me included) territorially root through mounds of cast-offs, sniffing for tasty bits. My creosote encrusted pot was nestled among a tangle of coat hangers and cheap neck ties waiting for a sorry sap to clean it. The above photo shows my dirty guy AFTER a soaking of oven cleaner.

Ta-da!
After hours of scraping congealed grease and carbonite my pot is now mostly clean.

I lost a little paint around the bottom but – an improvement nonetheless.

The only problem is, tangerine seems lonely being the only brightly hued fellow in my cookware collection. A 9-quart friend perhaps, in cobalt...*sigh*