AUGUST ESSAYS, AN IRON PAN

I have an iron skillet. It's old, came in to the world before I did. My Grandmother cooked in it. It was one of the things I asked for after she was gone. 

There's history in that old skillet. I get teased because I'm a vegetarian and that  frying pan was well seasoned many years ago with bacon grease and lard. My Grandma used it for nearly every meal. She fried bacon or ham and eggs for breakfast, fried tomatoes and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and fried chicken and gravy for dinner. They were farm people and worked long, hard hours every day of their lives. Calories were a necessity and so was fat. It was the fuel that kept them going, starting their days before sunup and working until well after sun down. Not a fat person among them either. They were too busy working to worry about weight issues.

I remember sitting in the kitchen at her little formica table with the red top, waiting for my breakfast. She was very proud of her "new" little table. The old walnut kitchen table was in the barn (and I asked for that one too). I wasn't allowed to kick my feet against the table or the aluminum chairs that matched, the ones with red seats. So I would sit quietly, waiting for my breakfast, watching my Grandfather eat great volumes of food; pie and oatmeal, eggs and toast, big cups of coffee with real cream and fresh orange juice. He always ate first because he needed to get out the door. Wasting time was not allowed in their house.

Grandma would fuss over me, trying to get me to eat more. "Eat. EAT! You're much too thin. How can you live on so little? " And she would fix me oatmeal with brown sugar on top, raisins and walnuts, floating in real cream from my Grandpa's dairy herd. " Eat all of it. It's good for you, sticks to your bones!" Her dog, Penny, loved me a lot. I would eat tiny bites while Grandma was watching and then hold the bowl down for Penny to eat the rest. Grandma wanted me to eat as much as Grandpa! There was just no way. I really was a tiny, little girl with an appetite to match. But I also wanted to make my Grandma happy so I would eat some of what she fixed and Penny got fatter while I staid on the farm. Like I said, Penny loved having me there.

I remember her big, strong hands cutting and cooking, cleaning while she went. A kitchen was her dance floor and her meals were a work of culinary art, Kansas farm style. 

My Dad and his brothers grew up eating meals from that pan. Grandma brought it to her marriage with Grandpa. And she taught me how to cook in it too. Showed me how to watch the heat so it wouldn't scorch, how to turn it up or down for different parts of the meal. I learned how to make gravy and sauces, omelets and frittatas, fried tomatoes and onions with peas in that pan. 

She also showed me how to care for it. You never wash an iron pan with soap, NEVER. You can rinse it quickly with hot water and a scrubbing brush kept just for that purpose, but rubbing it with salt and lard was better. Now I use olive oil but it has the same effect, keeping the perfect surface for cooking on. The blacker the pan,  the better. And you always store it upside down. Keeps dust and flies from getting inside, on the cooking surface. And if there's a mouse, it can't climb in to the pan either. Grandma was very practical.

I do the same now, use that old pan nearly every day. My son gave me a lovely set of excellent cookware. I use those pans too but my iron skillet is my pan of choice for nearly every meal. I remember cooking meals as a very young, tired Mom with a baby in my arms, asleep, while I fixed eggs for my toddler. I'd drop butter in and then the eggs, but not until the butter was just sizzling. Timing is crucial when you cook in an iron skillet. Too soon and your food turns to soggy mush. Too late and too hot and your food is scorched and under cooked in the center. It is still a challenge because weather and humidity can affect the way things cook too. It's all very intuitive, perfect for my right brained methods. 

There's history in that old pan. It holds years and years of laughter, anger, conversations, fears and crying, beginnings and endings. It was used through the Great Depression, World War One and Two. And we've added to that. The first men walked on the moon, buildings in New York came down, babies were born, And Grandma and Grandpa died.  I taught my boys to cook in that iron skillet, before they left home. It's a different world than the one my Grandmother grew up in. I wanted them to know how to take care of a house as well as a car or lawnmower. And I've taught my husband how to cook in that pan too. He can fix a mighty fine breakfast omelet if I do say so myself. And any good chef can tell you that making an omelet perfectly is the mark of a very good cook indeed. 

That pan was made at a time when tools were made by hand, one at a time. A true craftsman made my iron skillet and it still looks just like it did when I inherited it. It is an entity now, with a life and history of it's own. One day I hope to give it to one of my Grandchildren and to have the opportunity to teach them to cook in it too. 

It's a circle, you see. I love circles. We complete them in our lives over and over again, sometimes small unnoticed circles and sometimes large ones, like moving to a place of your ancestors. I've taken that old pan with me everywhere we've lived including to Germany, in my luggage. I wrapped it in a pair of blue jeans and then filled it with socks. It put me over my weight limit but I gladly paid the penalties. I was starting my first home, just married and so achingly young. If I had my pan I knew it would be OK. 

I've put that pan in to every new kitchen we've moved in to, first thing unpacked, always. It's how I carry our history with us, my past, my children's childhoods and mine, my life with my husband. If we move again, hopefully to Essex County, Virginia, I will bring my cast iron pan with me in the truck,packed in a suitcase and wrapped in a pair of blue jeans. That's become a tradition too, a good luck charm if you will. 

And I'll bring our history with us, the laughter and tears, hard times and good times and family. We'll cook our first meal there, adding our story to yours and telling it to our grandchildren and, if we're lucky, their children too. All we can offer is our enthusiasm, our love of the land and our horses who inhabit it, our iron pan and echoes of everything we are as a family. It's a circle that stands open. I hope you'll let my pan and I, my family on four legs and two,  complete the circle in a kitchen you've built and loved the way I will. We'd like to add our story to yours and keep the kitchen door open always, for you.