Seasoning Cast Iron

Housekeeping days around here, both in reality and cyberspace. I finally updated my commenting code, so if you noticed the problems with HTML tags in them, that’s hopefully fixed. Around here, I hung a ton of photos, baked a lovely blueberry pie, and finished seasoning my new frying pans. I didn’t get around to making my new curtains yet, though. I mean, I’ve been pretty swamped by actual work around here too lately.
By the way, a comment below reminded me that some people don’t like cast iron because they were told you can’t wash it with soap. You absolutely can use soap in cast iron – just use a gentle liquid soap and don’t scour, then dry thoroughly. And when I started using my own I remembered another oddity – don’t panic when, the first time you use yours, it appears that you’ve horribly burned the bottom. Cast iron is silvery gray when you buy it, but well used cast iron is very dark black – obviously, there’s a transition period. You can see in this picture how much it looks like I just ruined my pan, but it’s fine (though it would appear that I didn’t let it heat very evenly…) Eventually, the whole pan will change color, but don’t worry if even after a dozen uses it still looks splotchy.