Sorry, pans!!
An aggregation of the advice offered by pan heads in my DMs today.
In the distant future, I could see one or two people really loving this newsletter and maybe writing me some “fan mail.” What I ended up getting is (DAD JOKE ALERT) pan mail. This was supposed to be a once-a-week newsletter but the passion for pans in my DMs made me feel like I had to do a special edition for all the cast iron heads out there.
Let me begin by explaining my kitchen skill level: I’m getting very good at pairing different things from the Trader Joe’s frozen section together as “meals.” I can handle chicken, a few soups, entry level pasta dishes and black bean burgers. This is all accomplished with a lot of stress and shopping, because I can’t seem to figure out what basics I should be keeping in the kitchen at all times and I forget recipe instructions the second I read them. Now let’s talk about The Pan. The pan in question is a standard cast iron pan, which I decided I maybe needed after reading hundreds of posts like this one about one-skillet meals. I thought maybe this was the answer for a noob like me. The whole meal in one pan! Easy! The one I linked to in Sunday’s newsletter (which you can read here) is this 10-inch one by Lodge. It’s the Amazon best-seller, has 15,000 reviews and over 1,000 answered questions, which should have been my first clue that this would be a divisive item. You’ll notice this is the pre-seasoned pan. The seasoning process seemed like a whole thing because I’m a kitchen baby. I also felt weird about cooking meat in a thing I’m not supposed to scrub or even wash, unless I use some sort of salt paste. I regularly buy pre-chopped garlic that comes frozen in little cubes…I’m not gonna make salt paste.
My question in Sunday’s newsletter was: Is a cast iron pan a kitchen staple, and do I need one? My instagram DMs today were a 50/50 split of “100% yes” and “hell no.”
Some people suggested enamel cast iron pans instead, which are more expensive but seem easier to clean and maintain. One person steered me towards carbon steel pans, specifically an $89 carbon steel pan. Some condemned all cast iron pans, calling them “a scam” and “trash.” Others said non-stick is the real scam. One person said: “Quote me on this: ALL CLAD.” Then there was this: “I think people who struggle with cast iron problems don’t keep it seasoned properly. People do pretend it’s easy but there are rules.”
As I read the messages, I swayed between team cast iron to team extremely against a pan with rules. You are witnessing a moment of personal growth, because I’m buying the fucking pan (pre-seasoned) and I’m committing to using it at least once a week for at least a month when it arrives. Send me your favorite not-too-hard recipes!
Goodbye until SUNDAY! For real this time.
V