Useful Knowledge: How to Season Cast Iron

Work in progress

 

I have posted a few things that I made in my beloved large and deep cast iron pan.  I realized that I've now owned it for a little over a year!  And in that time, it has improved, probably more than any fine wine would.  

The cast iron pan was a rusty and forgotten old piece of metal in a cardboard box from the days when my family friend went camping--we are talking 70's, I'm thinking.  The pan hadn't seen bacon or the sun in probably around 30 years.

I did some research online about how to clean it.  I would recommend against using a bunch of chemicals like oven cleaner and the like.  After all, this is something you're going to eat off at some point, right?

What did I use?  Salt.  Just plain old table salt is fine.  Cheaper the better, as you will need a lot of it, probably.  Just lightly wet the pan and then pour a lot of salt onto it.  Take a damp paper towel to it and scrub scrub scrub away.  When everything starts to dissolve and/or turn brown, rinse it out, and get a new paper towel and a new bit of salt.  Repeat the process until the rust is gone and pan looks relatively smooth.

Once the pan is smooth, rinse and then wipe off any water.  Now, the pan is very prone to rust/oxidization.  So, you want it to be away from water.  Put it on the stove to dry it out quick.  Then...  Put a dollop of vegetable oil (or other neutral, high-heat oil) on it and wipe all over with a paper towel so that there is a small layer (still on the stove).  Some people prefer the pan upside down in the oven, but I didn't notice much difference.  Heat for several minutes and cool down.  Repeat the heat and cool whenever you feel like it.  This is the start of your seasoning.

Then, cook in it!  Cook a lot!  Cook often!  But, it needs to slowly build up that many-layered seasoning if you want this pan to be something you treasure and use all the time.  Obviously the best thing to do in it is fry bacon.  That goes without say.  Saute things.  Don't do acid-based items like tomatoes, at least until it is well-seasoned.  Heck, I even did some scones in it (line the pan with melted butter first), and it turned out great.

After each time you cook, wait for it to cool so you can handle it, and gently rinse and wipe and then reheat with another layer of oil.  After several times of the cook-wipe-season process, you will see that this is probably the best item in your entire kitchen. 

Oh, and if you have a stubborn bit of burnt food on it, just apply a little salt to that portion and re-season just as you did at the beginning.

Before you know it, you'll use this for cooking just about everything.

Joan's Way of Life

Joan being dressed by the legendary Golden Age costumer, Adrian.

 

Recently I had the pleasure of reading Joan Crawford's book, My Way of Life.  It's another of those obscure, out of print books that I believe is a treasure.  I first heard about it, and got it via Link+, several years ago.  However, I ran out of time to finish it, and forgot about it for a few years.  I decided to try for it again, seeing as a purchased copy goes for about $100.  It's not really a memoir per se, although there are some tidbits (none very juicy) about her Hollywood life, very little about her childhood and pre-Hollywood times, and a few more anecdotes about her various husbands and "friends," her life married to the CEO of Pepsi, and her family life.  Of course, when you read about her times with her daughters, it is hard not to envision Mommy Dearest.  For more juicy stuff, click here.

 

Her style tips are very intriguing.

 The tips in the book read like a "Happy Homemaker" guidebook, albeit one written by a slightly deranged and very rich lady who came of age during the Silent Film era of Hollywood.  All of us can have double-decker closets (i.e., two stories tall), right?  You know, for our out-of-season items.

The pencil marginalia was already on the book.  NO WIRE HANGERS!!!

Some of the book made me a bit sad, as she definitely seemed like someone who had an undiagnosed case of OCD.  I'm not sure how good it is for your shoes to be rubber-banded together and put in plastic bags.  You really have to feel for her "help."


Diet tips are somewhat sensible, surprisingly.

 For an interesting party, invite a variety of guests.  You know, maybe a CEO of a large corporation, a poet, an artist, etc...  Oh yeah, just the usual bunch.  And if you want to be a good hostess, get help (as in, hire a maid) so you can enjoy your own party.  If you aren't too well off, just one will do, but two maids and a butler is better.

I'm sure she was a lovely woman.

 This book is really a good read if you like movie history, actresses of the Golden Age, or retro homemaker guides.  Some of Joan's advice is actually pretty sensible, while other bits are just a little on the loopy side.  Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I do get a feeling of her loneliness, sadness, and struggles in life, even though she works hard to gloss over everything and make everything sound picture perfect.  I'd like to think that if I met her, she would be a woman who just needed a friend and was a bit misunderstood for the route she took in life.

Make Money with Dumpster Diving and the Law of Thrift

Some dumpsters would require PPE, don't you think?

I just read a wonderful article in Wired, which you can find here.  It's about a guy who has been driving around Austin, dumpster diving.  And he finds all sorts of brand new items!  He started dumpster diving as part of his job as a security consultant (to show where a company had vulnerabilities with information leakage).  He is picky as far as which dumpsters he goes to.  Probably not restaurant dumpsters...  Definitely dumpsters at Best Buy, Harbor Freight, and the like.  Many times, he finds brand new items, discarded by employees.

Is this something we would have seen fifty years ago?  Our culture now is so fixated on everything being disposable, and the need to consume new things and newer things.  Planned obsolescence.  There is an interesting quote:

"Prosperity was becoming a kind of secular religion, and its visionary torchbearer was J. Gordon Lippincott. Today, Lippincott is remembered mainly as the father of corporate branding, the engineer-cum-marketer who created the Campbell’s Soup label and the Coca-Cola logo. He was also, however, the high priest of planned obsolescence. 'Our willingness to part with something before it is completely worn out is a phenomenon noticeable in no other society in history,' he wrote. The phenomenon 'is soundly based on our economy of abundance. It must be further nurtured even though it is contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity—the law of thrift.'"

Woah.

That just blew my mind.

One of the things that bothers me the most about modern technology is also one of the things I like best.  We have these tiny computers we carry around, that can make calls, surf the internet, set alarms, and even map where I hike via GPS.  This smartphone did not come cheap.  Yet one drop off the kitchen counter and the screen is smashed to smithereens.  One year later and the model is obsolete because of a new version.  Time to dispose of--not repair--the phone.

Yet in this culture where we love to throw away things (and someone else can deal with it, magically), people are throwing away brand-new items that the gentleman profiled in the article above can re-sell.  If there is a need for an item, why is it being tossed?

I love capitalism (YAY CAPITALISM!).  But, as you can see by Lippincott's quote, and I do agree with him--consumerism, and planned obsolescence, is in fact contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity--the law of thrift.

Let's return to the law of thrift!

For all the new trends that arise--wanting to get back to "natural" parenting because that's the way it has been done for thousands of years, for instance...  Let's make returning to our natural law of thrift a priority as well!

As I have been saying for several posts now, reduce, reuse, recycle...  In all aspects of your home.  Maybe one day, dumpsters will have a service involved that strives to actually keep items out of landfills, and not rely on Freecycle or dumpster divers.  Sure, grassroots is great--but perhaps if anti-waste legislation was implemented, we would see our landfills be less, um, filled.

And, as for planned obsolescence:  Let's overcome it.  I see it in fashion all the time.  Those skinny jeans are SO five seasons ago.  Please try wide leg.  Please try flare.  Oh wait, those flares are SO three seasons ago.  Please try skinny.  And so on.  Less waste and more thrift is what we need to return to.  We can have technology without waste; I know it is possible.

Let's Keep it Clean

It's always a struggle to keep one's house clean.  Well, unless you're a neat freak, in which case, want to help me clean mine?  I have been called a neat freak, but trust me, that I am not.  Some weeks are too busy, with too many commitments and too many people to make happy, that I just don't have the time to do much past emptying the trash and cleaning up after dinner.  Then the weekend comes, and we have more commitments and guests and places to go, sometimes overnight.  Vacuuming out the cabinets becomes a non-priority.

I was reminded of the need to put things on a schedule thanks to this handy chart.  It starts out innocently enough, reminding you to wipe down counters daily (doable), and even ends by reminding you to do things seasonally like clean out the pantry.  But it lost me at "scrubbing tile grout" because we have a rental with rotted grout, and it's not on us to repair/replace/regrout.  We just have to make do.  As Bay Area residents, we are far from alone in being renters.  It also lost me at "wipe down inside of medicine cabinets."  We have one very small one, which I guess I wipe down once in awhile, but if you don't have too much junk, the actual cleaning of things is not too ornery a task.

If you just modify a list and make it work for you, that's a good start.  Some weekends, I can set aside two hours to clean the house--this weekend, I did the bathroom and kitchen.  But, some weekends are too busy (unless you want to be that weirdo cleaning the bathroom when everyone is enjoying a potluck?).  In that case, we break up the cleaning--bathroom sink and counter and toilet one day, shower/tub the other, kitchen floor another, and so on.  Once in awhile if I'm feeling zesty, I'll even scrub the baseboards.  Use your eyes and nose to help guide you on what really needs to be done.

I personally think it's all about simplifying things--your surroundings and your possessions, so that the cleaning and tidying is super easy to do.  Then, simplify the cleaning and tidying.  Find multi-taskers that can clean both floors and counters.  No need to have three cabinets' full of cleaning supplies for every surface.  For us, we use a Method brand cleaner on the tub and tile, and Dr. Bronner's peppermint cleaner on the floors (the whole house smells like a candy cane when done).  Bon Ami works great on our stainless steel sink. 

Natural products like vinegar, lemon, and salt, also do some great cleaning.  Vinegar is king!  Just google to find out ratios for cleaning different household surfaces.  The internet is awesome.

For some good tips on how to whip your kitchen into shape, I really liked these ideas.  Also, this article on how to care for kitchen items.  I'll talk about kitchen stuff in a later post.  I just wanted to focus on general house stuff in this one.

Decluttering the Spare Room

Wow, isn't that a lovely picture?  Don't you love clutter?  I know I do.

Said no one, ever!

Except maybe hoarders.

I'm not a hoarder.  But maybe I was at some point.  The above picture was about the worst our spare room looked.  This is when I first moved in with my now-husband, from my apartment.  I just had the movers (aka my friends) throw boxes in this room to get them out of the way.  But it may have stayed cluttered for more time than I care to admit.  Even if the clutter got shuffled around, there was still stuff that I didn't really need taking up space in a more or less unusable room.

The years went by (well just a couple years), and the spare room got organized, but was still full of clutter and not really usable.  It also became a catchall for other clutter in the house.  Every time we needed to clear spaces because of a party, all the junk got thrown in this room, and the door closed.  Every time someone gave me something I didn't want to deal with or find a place for yet, it got thrown in here.

While I did get pretty good at contortioning myself in an ungraceful version of some movie star playing a spy and getting through those laser maze thingies, I was tired of having this junk room.  Compound that with people who were comfortable enough to poke fun at it, leading me to silently ask them why they never invited me to THEIR house??  But I digress.

I did end up doing a version of the "clear it all out and evaluate" technique I mentioned yesterday.  I cleared it all out to the living room, except for the closet (which would wait for another day--I'm not insane, mind you).  It took me a sixteen hour day (I'm not joking), working non-stop and almost throwing out my back to go through all the junk. 

I do have some awesome things, and I did keep them.  But now they are actually easy to find and access.  I know where all my stuff is.  I did keep some mementos, too.  But, I suggest you define the word "memento"--or it can easily turn into JUNK.  Mementos shouldn't really take up more than a box. 

The main rule, the golden rule of decluttering is this series of questions (a quick google search yields neat articles like this):

- Do I use this?  (Additionally, if you haven't used it in a year, why is it in your home?)

- Does this bring me joy?

- Does this add beauty to my surroundings?

Once you answer these, you get a better idea with how much actual junk is sitting around just taking up space in your house.  It impedes energy flow, it impedes your movement in your house...  It's just no bueno.

This article also suggests to digitize nostalgia.  This was a HUGE boon for me.  Just take a pic on my smartphone of those awesome shoes I never wear but like to look at, or that coat that has an awesome lining, or that memento from that one awesome trip to wherever.  Maybe some things that bring you joy but are not useful and don't add beauty to your surroundings...  Maybe they would be best kept only in digital form.

The trend toward paring down is gaining steam.  Hopefully I'm not bombarding you with information and links, but here is another one.

Here is a nice write-up about a book you can peruse at Amazon or your local bookstore.  It has some good common sense.  You do want to have a super awesome and clean house that has a really chic Japanese vibe to it, right?

I'll give you a moment to cruise those links.  Done?  Found more links?  Awesome.  Getting inspired?  Where do you start?

I started with this one room.  Just with the boxes in the room, full of stuff I had no idea I owned.  In that sixteen hour day that I believe also made me catch a cold (seriously, this is hard work but worth it), I got TWO CARLOADS of bags of things to donate to my local thrift store (Thrift Town, woohoo!).  The house actually felt lighter.  In the end, that meant I could actually walk into the room and use it as a room. 

Another weekend day was spent whittling down the clutter that rested along the walls (LOTS of stationery) yielded several more bags.  Also, I filled up our empty recycling bin twice--so much stuff I had been hauling around!

Once the bags were out of the house, and the house itself (then car) felt lighter, I could focus on the next step (and the next step--it's addicting!).  I'm in the midst of a clothing declutter, which will be in another post.  Some advice says to start with clothing, but I had been doing that slowly all along.  Clearing out that spare room motivated me to really pare down my clothing.  As I said, I used to be a shopaholic.  Now I have, I just counted, eight purses total.  And one duffel bag for traveling.  I could have less if I wanted--three are in the current rotation.

Lastly, one final thought for you.  You could take it ALL to the thrift store, which is an awesome idea.  Maybe you have something worth a lot, but it's nice to just leave it there for someone to discover.  Or, you can go to eBay or the like and see if what you have is really worth a lot.  Then you have to decide if the effort to sell it is worth your time or not.  I have had luck with places like Crossroads to buy back some of my clothing, but sometimes they don't need what you have.  You decide what to do, but the end goal should be a lighter house, and not being owned by your things.

One final, final point.  When my husband and I were looking for homes to buy in the past few years (the market is too crazy now to do much besides save more money), we felt that we couldn't have smaller than a 3 and 2 because we had so much stuff.  Talk about being owned by our stuff!  How much stuff do you really need, two people who sleep in the same room??  My husband was raised in a 2 and 1 cottage, with his parents and brother.  The fact that half the people need twice the space is ridiculous.  So, give me some more of those garbage bags to fill (and show me the listings for cottages).

The Struggle: Decluttering

We all have problems, at various levels, with controlling clutter that enters our house.  I think there are a few problems that make life as a middle-class American especially cluttered.  I want to talk about this here and there on this blog as I myself struggle to declutter our house and not be owned by our things.

The first problem is that shopping is a pastime in this country.  People shop on vacation for souvenirs, people shop for gifts for every occasion (whether the item is meaningful or needed, or not), people shop with their friends as a way to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon.  People shop because they're bored.  They shop because there is a sale they couldn't pass up (how could you afford not to?).  People put stuff on credit because they just had to have it.

I have one word for this:

NO!  STOP!

Okay, that's two words.

I speak from the standpoint of someone who used to be a shopaholic.  But what is a shopaholic?  I was able to quit cold turkey a few years ago, and I definitely did not develop the shakes or the sweats.  I did notice something growing exponentially:  my bank account!  Imagine that.  When you spend less money, you are able to save more money.

Over the past few years, I have decided to not be owned by my stuff.  At first, this meant just not buying new stuff.  Maybe this even meant allowing things like shoes and coats to show some wear before buying new ones.  However, I didn't get rid of the things I had already purchased.

As an aside, let me tell you that when I stopped being a shopaholic, I also went through some moves.  I moved out of my parents' house and into my friend's house to rent a room.  I moved out of there and into my other friend's condo that she was selling.  Then out of there (all the while some things being stuck in storage) and into my own one bedroom apartment (and out of the storage unit too).  And the best one:  out of my one bedroom and into a two bedroom just across the complex, as my brother moved in with me.  This involved walking my belongings across the parking lot, from one second-story unit to another.  Finally, I moved all my items in with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and his brother.  All the while, my long-suffering friends had to move pounds and pounds of JUNK.  Sorry guys.

Now, let me introduce you to my new addiction:  I am addicted to getting rid of stuff!  I decided I want to live a more clean life.  I guess in current terminology, I want to be more MINDFUL.  But I think that word has become so clichéd as to lose its meaning.  So, let's just say I want to not be wasteful in anything I do.  I will go into my individual processes in subsequent posts, and believe me, it's a process.  But I want to leave you with a good tip I just ran across today over on the blog Seventeenth & Irving:  to clean out your bedroom, take everything out of the room except your actual bed and sheets and blanket, two nightstands, and their respective lamps.  Then only put back the stuff you really need.  Read more at the link for more information.

I guess the moral of the story for now is, we actually need a lot less STUFF than we think we do.  Stay tuned for more posts as I continue on my decluttering journey.