Cast. Iron.

 

B Tyronious, in the kitchen, with the Black Cast Iron Pan on the stove

When we were growing up my mother and my aunts did certain things around eating and serving that most of my cousins and I are doing now. For example, they all kept kosher salt in a box or a small dish that you would season things with when preparing meals or, if the dish was lovely, you could put it on the table for additional seasoning.  You never put the milk carton or orange juice carton or any carton on the table.  All these liquids had to be contained in a pitcher or some lovely serving item.  Same with butter, sugar, cream, — you get the picture. The table was supposed to be attractive, whether or not there was company.

When they cooked there were specific pots and pans they used, depending on what they were cooking.  My mother had a pan she only used for blintzes. Aunt Peppy and Aunt Sophie had special baking dishes they used for cheesecake, and mandel bread.  There were pots they used for cholent, chicken soup, and chopped liver.  There were even bowls they used to mix tuna fish. 

When we were growing up they had service for 144 in dishes, flatware, and glassware because when they shopped, they bought the same product for at least four of their siblings. Most of the stuff was colorful, but only because there was so much of it.  There was never a time, as an adult, that I told my mother I couldn’t live without one of the settings. And besides my mother always looked for a sale on dishes which, when purchased, went directly to her attic.  Her attic was like a gift store, the closest thing I knew to “as advertised on TV.”  Whenever you needed a shower or wedding gift, all you had to do was visit Rosie’s attic.  Now that I think about it, we should have turned it into a business. When she died, we found at least three, never been opened sets of dishes, crystal vases, silver serving pieces, and all sizes of glasses.  She had bubbled glass Passover dishes (because we always changed dishes on Passover), that I still yearn for.  No one knows what happened to those.

Anyway, I still have my kosher salt and pepper in lovely little dishes I keep on the counter.  When my cousins visit they know right where to go to look for the salt — everything needs a little salt.  And you will hardly ever find a carton on my table.  But what you will find is an old cast iron pan living on my stove.  The pan has been used and reused for at least 45 years, although I did not always keep it on the stove.  But the thing is so heavy that at some point I decided it should just stay there.  What is so interesting it that one of my 4th quarter queen/sisters has hers on the stove as well.  So I bought two more. One for another fourth quarter queen, and one for Jordan, who I will continue this “black pan” phenomenon as a family tradition.

It is comforting to cook in that pan, which I do daily and for everything from eggs to onions, to meat and on and on.  It cleans up like all these new non stick pans, but everything tastes better, who knows why. Maybe because it remembers the tears of all those tough years when it was my only companion, and maybe because it helped inspire new recipes that I knew would work if they were cooked in that pan.  Isn’t it funny that as I grow older and decide to downsize, there are still those things that have become so precious and filed with memories, with which I could never part.  To be sure, you will never see it on eBay.  Now wasn’t this a refreshing change from my Trump blather.  We’re just sayin’… Iris