Cast Iron

 For reasons too dull to share, I had to strip my cast iron skillet and start over. I wasn't expecting tears, but  as the layers of seasoning washed away, nostalgia kicked in. Nearly twenty-five years of meals were peeled away.

The hand towel on my oven says, "Made with love and other shit" and that really does summarize my cooking. The cast iron skillet has been the cauldron for a multitude of leftovers resurrected with mushroom soup or curry sauce. The cast iron skillet has made close to one hundred batches of granola. That skillet held the most disgusting thing I've ever made when I thought vodka was a valid substitute for vermouth. It was the only thing Kirt refused to eat.

Here's the thing about cast iron, when you strip it down it is worthless. You can't cook jack until you season it again and build the layers back up. I made a lamb curry stew as the first layer after the stripping and seasoning to make sure we got off on the right foot.

I feel like we are living in a time of stripping away. The layers in our lives and society are being burned away and we are exposed. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes the only way to salvage something is to start over, but destruction leaves us worthless unless we season correctly and build back up. 

And I'm thinking my hand towel might have some of the best guidance for how we build back up.