As I rummaged through the half-dozen dust-covered boxes, I began to lose confidence in my memory.
“I’m sure it was here,” I silently assured myself as I sorted through all manner of dissimilar things I had only a vague recollection of shoving into a pair of grocery store tote bags. Newspapers interleaving a spice rack that I didn’t recognize; a few cloth-covered books I wondered why I’d saved from the trash; and a footed, butcher block cutting board that brought me instantly into the first kitchen I had ever known - my parents’.
Where was the skillet?
All summer I had been talking about the cast-iron frying pan I had spirited away to save for posterity.
I don’t know what made me think one of my children would be more interested in a pan their grandfather had seasoned and cared for … and probably inherited himself … than I had been when I dismissed the same piece of cookware and opted instead for a new forever-chemical pan from the hardware store. As I recall, the purchase set me back $20 (eight bucks more than the cast iron pan on the bottom shelf) and took me approximately three minutes to scar with a fork.
I didn’t want to push it on my returning college students; it’s not like they have ample storage in their dorm rooms or the initiative to power through whatever coats the surfaces of a communal kitchen.
I was surprised I had a taker.
My son understood the sentimental value of the artifact as much as he understood the culinary benefits of a good skillet.
At home, over the summer, long after dinner and his parents had retired for the evening (shortly after 9:30 p.m.), he had practiced until he perfected the late-night snack: a cheese-encrusted deep-dish pizza; steak tips au ju that would melt in your mouth; light and fluffy pancakes with a strawberry reduction.
The aromas would waft upstairs and into my dreams. Each morning, the realization of my dreams would be rinsed and piled in the sink.
No leftovers.
Turns out, he has plans to feed his friends on days when the cafeteria fare is lackluster.
I redouble my efforts to locate the cookware. It has to be here. I carefully take out the contents of each box and bag, lining up each item neatly and smoothing out the 20-year-old newspaper wrappings that cradled them.
I was surprised how the last bag seemed heavier with each thing I removed, which is why I was relieved to find the 9-inch pan at the bottom.
It is almost as clean and smooth as I remembered, just a tiny bit of rust on the hanger edge of the handle.
“That’s nothing,” my son smiles as he inspects the skillet, turning it as easily as he turns a flapjack. A little steel wool and salt and that will be as good as gone.
Honestly, it made me tear up a little. I tell him his grandfather would be delighted his old pan would be of good use.
The boy smiles and says, “That’s good, because my dad will probably have some other kinds of thoughts when I tell him I’m also taking one of the hex-clad pans he bought at Costco.”
No comments:
Post a Comment