02/18/07

A couple of weeks ago Chris’ boss found a recipe involving a cast iron skillet and some steaks.  Lots of smoke later, bingo, excellent steak.  With Chris’ new found interest in cooking my loving husband read up on the subject and decided that he needed a cast iron skillet too.  After much delaying and deliberation an Amazon order was placed and a skillet delivered, it was even pre-seasoned.  Chris was very excited, he’d found two large slabs of London broil (we’d both thought London broil was a roast, but apparently not) and a great online recipe on how to cook them in a cast iron skillet.   “You can’t clean it with soap,” he warned me.  “And you have to be careful how you warm it up.  And the whole thing gets hot, so just remember that.”  I promised I’d remember.  “And you can’t scrub it, you can’t put it in the dishwasher and you can’t put cold water in it when it’s hot.”  He insisted.  “Okay, you get to clean it then.”  I told him.  Sheesh!

Yesterday around noon I had Amelia and myself dressed and ready to go out the door when Chris woke up, which was unexpected as he hadn’t gone to bed until 7:30 that same morning.  He asked where we were going and I explained my plans to take Amelia to Mingus and walk around the duck pond before going to the office for a few hours, “do you want to come?” I asked dubiously as he walked groggily toward the bathroom.  “Eh.”  He said.  I finished gathering all of the baby accoutrements together and fed the mass of hungry cats at the back door before going into the den to say goodbye to him.  “Bye.” I said brightly.  “I’m going to come with you.” He said, staring at the game on his computer screen.  “You are?” I said blankly, he was wrapped in a blanket and exhibiting no signs of preparing to be in public.  ”Yeah,” he affirmed, making adjustments to his character, “I’ll take the truck and, uh…” he trailed off, staring at the screen.  “And?” I prompted. “And, uh…” he typed something.  I sighed, resisting the urge to poke him.  “I have two stops that I have to make before I’m going to the park, so are you going to meet us there?” There was a long pause. ”Yeah.  Yeah, that’ll be good…” He mumbled.

After a 15 minute drive into town and a store that Amelia and I wandered through aimlessly and dropping stuff off at the Good Will, we headed for the park.  Amelia decided that she was tired and cranky and didn’t want to be in her car seat anymore.  Amidst her wailing I called home and Chris’ cell leaving a message that we were almost to the park.  We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes until Amelia was red in the face with screaming that she wanted out.  Chris called as I was attempting to feed her.  I could barely hear him over Amelia’s hollering but I gathered that he was on his way.  Amelia wasn’t willing to wait, she was far too busy complaining that whatever I was doing was not what she needed.  I pulled out the stroller and as soon as I pulled out Amelia she took a deep breath of the chilly air and immediately became calm and collected.  I strapped in her in the stroller and we waited in the parking lot for a few minutes.  Still no Chris and Amelia was getting fussy again.  We walked across the street to the pond and after a short walk found a bench not covered in bird manure.  Amelia took a few sips from the bottle I proffered her, sat quietly for a total of five minutes and then went off like a siren again.  My phone rang.  “Where are you?” Chris asked in an exasperated tone.  I tried to explain where we were and why but didn’t get out much over Amelia’s howling.  By this time, thank the gods, Chris was strolling down the path, swinging a bag of bread.  Chris was irritated that I hadn’t waited for him and I was on the edge after so much of Amelia’s screaming.  Amelia calmed down and though she didn’t seem to care much about the ducks and seagulls eyeing our bag of bread she didn’t seem upset by them either.  We took out a piece of bread and threw a couple of pieces at the ducks in an experimental fashion.  The seagulls swooped in and claimed most of the pieces.  Chris and I both grabbed more slices and it became a contest of throwing out pieces fast enough that each bird could get a piece, this turned into who-can-the hit-the bird-with-a-chunk-of-bread contest and then into who-can-throw-the-farthest-and-hit-the-water contest.  By the time we’d gone through most of the bag of bread the birds in front of us were wondering off sated and since I’d eaten a few slices myself I knew how they felt.  We packed Amelia back into the stroller where she promptly fell asleep and wandered around the pond, stopping to give the last bit of our bread to ducks or geese we felt worthy of it.  The entire time Amelia slept and Chris and I discussed the book A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin of which Chris had already read and I was close to finishing it that night.  (Excellent fantasy novel by the way.)  We went our separate ways after that and met at home that evening to put into action Chris’s experiment with the cast iron skillet.

“It’ll only take twelve minutes,” he warned me last night, “so I’ll wait until Amelia has had her bath and gone to bed because it’s supposed to create lots of smoke so I don’t want to do it alone.  We should probably disable the smoke detectors.”  I told him that I’d rather leave them on, even at the probable risk of waking Amelia, so that I’d know that they really worked… after several bouts of cooking smoky bacon I was concerned that they hadn’t made a peep, even though they worked when I pushed the button, but true fires aren’t considerate enough to push the button.   Chris agreed and we planned that I would be on smoke detector detail.  This was shaping up to be a grand adventure.  That evening as Amelia played in the bath, happily chewing on the beak of the pink devil duck Megan had found back when she was Steve the fetus, Chris came in with a face reminiscent of Wilbur, the talking horse.   “It cracked.”  He said fatalistically.  “The skillet, it cracked right down the middle.  I put it on the stove and turned the heat up and it cracked.”  He was crestfallen.  Apparently the same cast iron skillet that you can use over an open campfire was extra-sensitive when it comes to electric stoves.  The damn thing cracked.   Chris was heartbroken.  He sadly put the London broil that he’d already prepped and seasoned back into the fridge.  He cleared off the counter of all the cooking instruments he had planned to use but left the traitorous skillet on the stove, untouched.  He made hamburgers instead, less adventurous, excellently seasoned hamburgers, in a pan that didn’t give a damn if you put it in the dishwasher.  “Maybe if you really do go into work tomorrow, you can stop at Walmart and see if they have a cast iron skillet.”  He said hopefully.  “I need the Log Cabin brand, and it has to be 12 inches, and it has to be pre-seasoned.”  He called Walmart to make sure and was told that no, they didn’t have any in stock, not even in sporting goods.  Chris dejectedly went back to his computer game.  “But if you do go to town, can you at least pick up some salad mix, and ask mom to make some of her special dressing.”  I promised him that I would at least do that.

So this morning, I packed Amelia up and she went to Grandma Rose’s house while I went on a cast iron skillet quest.  I went to Kmart first, because I need baby bottles anyway.  They didn’t have the baby bottles nor the Log Cabin brand skillet, but they did have a Martha Stewart brand cast iron skillet.  I bought it, just in case.  Then I went to Walmart and returned the baby monitor Chris’ had bought on a whim before we decided to go with the Angel Care from Amazon, and just for the hell of it I took a look at their pots and pans selection.  Son of a bitch if they didn’t have THREE kinds of cast iron skillets ALL of them Log Cabin brand.  I bought the specific one Chris had asked for and happily headed to the office. 

Damn if I didn’t forget the salad mix.  So I’m calling mom right now about the dressing and hopefully, with ANOTHER stop at the store, a little luck and a lot of smoke, bingo, London broil.

Posted by Emilie in Family