I have posted a couple of times on my blog about my grandmothers cast iron fry pan.
It’s one of my prized possessions, not because it’s worth anything but because she used it, touched it, and cook for her family with it.
I can’t rightly recall how I ended up with it? Must have been in the early 90’s when my mother was cleaning out to move…..But I have used it ever since.
It’s 94 years of seasoning, it’s something you cannot buy.
My Mim’s cast iron fry pan
I have cooked biscuits in it, fried eggs, made hash browns, gravy, and corn bread. I was taught to make corn bread in this pan, and didn’t know that;
1) They made corn bread mix in a box.
And
2) That you made it in a baking pan.
So when I would show up to parties with my corn bread in a skillet people would ask me if I had been watching too much Martha Stewart? And I would say Noooo, this is the way I was taught, how else do you make corn bread?
Strangers have emailed me for the recipe and gone out and purchased a cast iron pans for corn bread. I think I may have started a craze:)
My second favorite pan is this one.
Crepe pan
My $2.99 Goodwill find. A brand new Lodge Crepe pan.
Crepes are big in Canada, they are eaten with almost every meal, like bread in the US. In Northern Maine crepes are eaten with Jelly, butter, syrup. Stuffed with cheese, vegetables and meat. They are like a very thin pancake. And amazingly delicious!
However I am not french and did not grow up making these. So I bought the pan thinking I would use it for bacon, but have in the last 10 years have used it almost every morning for omelets. It is a perfect pan for a 2 egg omelet. And it took me just as long to perfect an omelet…
And this is the Granddaddy of them all, my 14″ cast iron fry pan bought at an auction for$5.00. I use this for fried chicken and large batches of frying.
14″ fry pan
Cast iron is healthier to cook with.
1) It’s iron, the iron goes in the food your cooking, very good for you
2) It has no chemical like non stick pans
3) If you season it right you need very little oil to cook with, under a teaspoon for no stick.
4) You will never have to lift weights again, cast iron is heavy:)
Don’t ever wash your pans with soap! You can scrub them off with water and then oil then down after. Soap takes off all the oil that the pan retains.
I normally just use a paper towel to wipe it out and when I use again heat before using, it kills all the germs.
I know that goes against the grain but I’ve been using my pans this way for years and nothing in the form of food poisoning or botulism has ever happened.
So try a cast iron fry pan.
~The Maine way~
Real housewives of Maine 
ifyoulivetobe100
One of the best finds of cleaning out my mother’s cabinets was her four cast iron pan set…my other half has been using them to cook with for over a year now. I can’t say I recall my mother ever using them herself, and they may have been something her mother gave to her and she chose the teflon craze of the 1960’s going forward and the cast iron was lost to time and the darker recesses of her kitchen cabinets to languish there for forty plus years until I pulled them out and decided to put them back to use. Love that you cook with the ones your grandmother used, and you’re right – ‘It’s 94 years of seasoning, something you can’t buy’. ;0)
Real housewives of Maine
My youngest daughters friends (16-17 year olds) will come over and I’ve had several ask me what they are? Lol! I’m only 47 how could cast iron been lost in the world of stainless steel pans?…We were never able to use non stick teflon quoting my mother “the shit on that pan will kill you!” I guess I may have listened to her, just a little:) And by the way Brad I love your writing:)