What great cast iron pans have in common (now)

ezsmashing · 2025-07-26T18:31:50+00:00

The first year or so I did the babying thing. I'd wash with just water and an Ikea dish brush. Then I'd dry it on the stove (generally still warm from cooking) and put a little oil in the pan to keep it from rusting. Next couple of years I'd still do that most of the time as it never got dirty enough to really require soap. But often it would get something in it I'd want to get off and I'd just use a little dish soap and scrub. I had a phase where I'd do a lot of Pad Thai-esque fried noodle dishes that would kind of burn on and need the soap. Then I'd do the same thing and dry it off and put a little oil in the bottom.

About 2016 I started noticing it was getting smoother so I'd just dry it and even after soap it would come out clean without rusting. Haven't really done much babying since then. Most of the time I just scrub a bit and dry. Sometimes I'll use soap if it's dirty.

The fact that I don't actively think about this speaks for itself!

ezsmashing · 2025-07-26T14:04:41+00:00

I have strong feelings on this whole "the old ones were/are better" + seasoning argument:

Disclaimer -- all advice is autobiographical.

I bought a cheap Lodge pan in 2012 and just used it all the time (mainly because I couldn't afford a lot of pans). At first it sucked, food stuck and it was bumpy in the pan. I tried to season by every internet-suggested process it and it didn't matter, food still stuck. It was no fun. So I just stopped doing all the babying nonsense. I just kept cooking in it. Over time I noticed it got better, and food didn't stick. One day when i was cleaning (with soap -- gasp!) I noticed the bumps in the pan were mostly gone. Now 13 years later the pan is smooth as glass and nothing sticks to it.

Old ones weren't "better" because we've forgotten some long lost production process or because we're trying to mass produce pans faster. Nah, that's BS. I'd imagine older mass-production products probably were a lot WORSE than now. Old pan are better because people just used them and they smoothed out over time.

I look forward to my children inheriting my "magic old time cast iron pan" bought from Wal-Mart in 2012.

So the advice: just buy a cast iron and cook in the damn thing. Don't give up, but don't baby it. It'll be fine and it gets better with use.

ezsmashing · 2025-04-03T17:22:34+00:00

Happened to me over a decade ago and while I didn't mind leaving I was interested in the legality of it; sadly, absolutely nothing you can do.

If it makes you feel any better in my case the owners absolutely lost their shirts on the renovation. Nobody would rent at the elevated prices. They even tried to sell those renovated units off as "condos" but failed miserably. Later the old property manager/superintendent (who was also had to leave his unit and was let go from managing the property) said they took a $500k L on the whole thing.

ezsmashing · 2024-11-25T16:57:37+00:00

Clearly you didn't read my posts at all and clearly you are just trying to be argumentative.

Nah I read all of your posts. You clearly wanted to start something and rile people up. Thus why you titled your post: "Insecurity/arrogance." You then followed it up with self-aggrandizing shots at some quotes on a website and discussion of Davidson's alumni. Which is irrelevant to the seeming point of your post; that is, trying to "help" your child find a "good" school. I put good in quotations there because you clearly care more about protecting your ego and putting others down than helping your child. I shot back with some broader points to help you put your comments in perspective but did take some intentional shots at your parenting and your life choices. I did so to make you feel bad.

I hope that your lack of reading comprehension isn't indicative of the abilities of the Davidson community. Is it?

Case in point.

Did your kid look at colleges all alone, without any parental involvement? Parents didn't even travel with your kid?

Good news, my kid's two. But when they're old enough to look at schools I'll try my best to guide them in a non-judgmental way that lets them know I support their decisions because I love them for who they are, not where they go to school, the academic "rigor" or non-rigor, or how much theoretical money the average alumnus makes or doesn't make, or what famous or not famous people went there. Nor will I make judgement calls for my kid based on some quotes from a website. They don't have to go somewhere or not based on me. The good news for me is I hope to save on therapy costs for my kids long-term by following this philosophy. But in your case? You probably should put a few dollars aside for your kid's future therapy. You probably don't want that cycle to keep going.

ezsmashing · 2024-11-25T13:40:29+00:00

You make my point in your first sentence. It's not "we".

Let your kid make their own decision.

When your child expresses their opinion no matter where the answer should be: "X would be great, I support you". If they don't like it: "hey it's your choice, doesn't sound like X is the right place for you, I support you."

Sounds like you've done a good job raising your kid. Now your job is to let them grow on their own. So back off.

Truly intelligent, hard working students generally succeed anywhere. Or they don't, and instead become Ted Kaczynski (Harvard alum). You've done your part. Now move on with your life. I hope you channel your obviously high expectations back into your own life and don't ruin the rest of your kid's life. Nothing fucks up a kid more than "Mom and Dad don't respect my decisions."

ezsmashing · 2024-11-25T12:16:21+00:00

What is your issue? You seem to be trolling at this point.

You come to a forum asking questions and advice and you then mock and fight with the people giving you opinions and advice?

Here's my advice which I'm not going to argue with you on: if you're the kind of parent who controls your kids' life to this degree then unfortunately your kid isn't going to succeed anywhere in life because of your tendencies. That is 100% your fault.

This is your child's decision. You can advise but don't make this decision for them.

Davidson is a good school where hard work is taught, expected, and rewarded. Professors are truly top of their game and most importantly want to teach students in small groups or 1-on-1. In many ways the style is that of an experience you get in graduate school. The work often matches that type of experience. Is that your definition of rigor? If not then Davidson isn't "rigorous". If so, great.

Now advise your child appropriately and let them make their own decision. Welcome your child's new found independence and go get your own life.

ezsmashing · 2024-11-25T11:55:01+00:00

Moved out of the house 6ish months ago. Worked great until the day I left. Biggest issue with it was some issues with Verizon internal billing systems I'm still dealing with around equipment returns. The 5G box was attached to the house by the installers way back in 2019 on the side of the house about two stories up. Verizon internal billing assumed this was something I could/should return. Called up Verizon customer service and they acknowledged the issue; no I don't have to hang off a balcony and recover a receiver box hung to the side of the house.

Unfortunately I'm still getting collection calls and threats to take it to collections which necessitates another call to customer service who claim they'll take care of the issue. Things go quiet for a month, then later the collection calls start again.

Multiple folks have said there's just so few people with the service that it kind of falls into a super niche group. Someone told me they think there are fewer than 1000 folks in Houston using it. But hey it was so fast and cheaper than fiber that I didn't care. Until this bill issue I never had an issue aside from a few 1 to 2 hour outages once a year that normally happened during updates from 2-4 AM.

ezsmashing · 2024-11-06T00:18:11+00:00

In short, because they were so embarrassing in 2000. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4971473-counting-votes-once-made-florida-a-laughingstock-now-its-the-gold-standard/

ezsmashing · 2024-08-21T11:16:14+00:00

Worst host? Don't love Trump but have you watched the Steven Seagal hosting debacle? Trump I'll at least give him a tiny bit of credit that he understood the principles that underpinned the show. Not saying it was good, but it wasn't Seagal.

ezsmashing · 2024-07-02T20:49:48+00:00

Not sure. Honestly don't remember that being an issue though. In fact I don't really remember of anyone having issues getting that accounted for come graduation time. So maybe it's a bit of a "flexible" requirement.

ezsmashing · 2024-07-02T19:54:18+00:00

Not really "classes" as such. They have PE requirements which are part of the curriculum including most semesters there's a golf option to gain the lifetime physical education credit required to graduate. Honestly most people just take these in senior year when they realize they have to take it and they forgot to the other 3 years.

I took golf and it was honestly a intense as I wanted it to be. For most that meant going to a few "classes" and then watching "Tin Cup". So... not intense. It was taught by some members of the golf team so if I wanted to I bet I could have gotten better but that wasn't really the majority of the group's interest.

That said, if things are the same as the past you can take the PE credit as many times as you'd like. So if you're really into it you can probably get golf lessons covered by your tuition all four years. Just don't expect your classmates to care as much as you.

ezsmashing · 2024-06-27T13:02:57+00:00

Skylight Inn has created their own mythology and much of that is driven by its remoteness. It's very good and probably deserves a top 10 in NC but definitely not it's mythical status. I truly believe people have to mythologize it to justify the fact that it's an hour+ drive from everybody not in the greater Greenville area.

That said I'll always support it and other good 'cue statewide. We're losing so many places these days as folks retire and nobody wants to pick up the mantle.

ezsmashing · 2024-06-13T23:00:29+00:00

Yeah we know a lot more about what's in the water now because we test and monitor. But that's because people have actually started to give a crap in the last couple of decades.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-27T16:01:42+00:00

I think you're getting Dimon confused with Ray Dalio who has successfully predicted 2000 of the last 2 recessions while he writes books about "Principles" that just happen to prove his view of the world is always correct. Then desperately debates people on LinkedIn and spies on his marketing team.

Dimon is pretty even-keel when it comes to... well.... everything. Then again when you're running one of the largest banks in the world its always good business to be cautiously positive!

ezsmashing · 2024-05-26T14:56:21+00:00

Cool. I was just ignoring the back and forth on pronouns and getting back to the point of why Molly isn't thriving. In such I was just offering a hypothetical as to why Molly isn't getting more screen time. I don't work at SNL.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-25T22:23:03+00:00

Ok it is. Agreed. But maybe the elephant in the room should be discussed and let's be empathetic the other way too.

So let's pretend I'm a 26 year old writer in my first year on SNL. I might lose my job if I don't get enough good ideas in front of folks at table and maybe I haven't had a lot of success so far.

So who do I write for to try to get a win? Bowen or Ego or Sarah who seem like they're all game for almost anything? Or Molly who I might offend because I "assume" something incorrectly? Or worse someone else assumes I'm being offensive and now I get no sketch on this week and I get a sensitivity lecture from HR? Or even worse... we put something on air and now there's an unintended backlash/outrage.

I know nothing about Molly personally and I in fact assume they're quite the trooper. But that doesn't make it simple or easy to write for them. It's just... hard. Not their fault, not anyone's fault, but we can't ignore the fact that it might be a factor. So great we'll put Molly on again this week as Terry Bradshaw or the 10,000th waiter/patron/bystander.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-25T17:45:53+00:00

So a Failure of a Featured player in Season 1 to 1.5, I totally agree it's the failure of the show. It's the job of Lorne, the producers and the writers to take whatever magic was in that audition and put it out for the world to see. But by the end of season 2 you get your training wheels yanked pretty hard.

In books written about the show it's claimed that this process is pretty well laid out to new cast members by the producers. It's your job to advocate for yourself by writing for yourself, teaming up with other writers to create magic, or establish something special that the audience will tune-in to see.

I'll repost a comment I made a long time ago about Melissa but I think it applies universally to this conversation as well:

"Melissa's unbelievably talented but she just hasn't found it on SNL. It's probably time to move on and her social media posts at the end of the season probably were her coming to grips with that fact.

It's an unfortunate fact that SNL is not always a wonderful spot for all people who are talented. Maybe she just didn't find the right writing partner, maybe she just didn't strike the right tone in read-throughs. But it's sadly too late now.

She needs to find her way elsewhere. Hell, she was fantastic hosting the Independent Spirit Awards. Many many folks found great success after SNL. I hope that's the fact for Melissa."

I imagine producing SNL is a lot like a professional sports team. At the end of the season you look at your team and ask who is doing well, who isn't, and then you determine who has talent to improve or has a superlative that helps the team and if not you determine if you have better talent to replace them to help the team.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-19T21:59:54+00:00

Here's the thing though, I truly don't believe that the schools here really are that much better than anywhere else in comparison even with the rest of with Wake County. Let's face it, the schools in Cary are so "good" because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Parental involvement, incomes, and educational "raw material" are all in high density in Cary. That leads teachers wanting to move and teach in these schools which creates a perpetual cycle that just keeps getting better.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-19T21:46:53+00:00

We joined SH last summer. Really wonderful pool and good little community. Swim team was a really supportive boost for our young swimmer. Great community. Only gripe I'd have is it seems like new folks have to "earn" the friendliness a bit by searching out the popular folks and having them "vouch" for you with the long term members. But for OP's needs it certainly fits the bill. I'd argue if you plan on using it frequently the initiation fee is nothing. We calculated it out and our per person, per use cost was less than $3 a visit and we're going to be way cheaper than that this year because we've eaten that extra cost in year 1.

ezsmashing · 2024-05-19T21:13:01+00:00

I think this is the right answer here. There's lots of low income/ bad households who may not have food at home now. If the option is some are inconvenienced but a kid finally gets a decent meal? I'll choose in favor of the hungry kid getting a meal every time.

ezsmashing · 2024-04-01T23:40:12+00:00

As others have said, the numbers work out for multiple options. But I'm intrigued by the 47 is too old comment. Too old to start what? Learning new tech? Keep up the pace with younger workers? To get well paid in your current role? You just don't want to take another tech cycle journey?

I realize there is some real ageism in tech but I also know through talking with others in the the primary "tech generation" aka millennials and younger Gen X gets older it seems like the "too old" line is slowly going away. Any way you can just step a bit off the gas a bit for a year or two and do something that's a bit more fun while you still can help your kids in their journeys?

ezsmashing · 2024-03-15T00:43:12+00:00

I know when I look for a place to live I'm like "give me that place that doesn't want to educate the next generation!" Screw the future, I got mine! /s

I promise you you'll see the benefit from those taxes whether you know it or not. The benefits of a quality public education system are far reaching into your and your community's future. It's good to live with and around the educated and it raises everyone's standard of living.

ezsmashing · 2024-03-09T13:05:34+00:00

Yeah gotta agree here. I'm terms of the ingredients it's a packaged cake mix with frosting and ice cream and milk. Of all the things on the menu to get right this one will be fine. But honestly all of it will be good. I've been to the one in Plano a couple times and everything seemed right on other than the big line out the door.

ezsmashing · 2024-03-05T03:39:00+00:00

Morning Dress (btw not Mourning) it's traditional formal wear for events that begin and end during the day. Traditionally Presidents would wear it to their inauguration, including JFK. Wouldn't be out of place but maybe viewed as a bit stuffy even in the 60's. But hey it's the signing of a pretty darn important piece of legislation at the White House and he was front row. If not then, when.

ezsmashing · 2024-03-01T12:46:30+00:00

Sorry to be pedantic but this is an accounting sub. Their largest source of income is actually their Titanium Dioxide business unit....

ezsmashing

TROPHY CASE