Returning to the craft

[BillyBones]

22 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

Traded my mother for my old cast iron

So, how many pots and pans was she worth? 

for egg crackin i use what ever knife i have handy. If it is a butter knife i use it, a steak knife, what ever i have with in arms reach. I have also used the edge of the spatula.

Xeno, my granddad passed in '84 when i was 14. By trade he was a carpenter but when we were living in the hills we had a small forge in the barn he would use to fix tools and the like. My post vise was his but my great granddads before that. My grandpa was the reason when i joined the Army i served on a tank. He was a tanker in WW2 on a Sherman under Bradley. My granddad was also somewhat mischievous, he did some time back in the 30's for running whiskey. 

My grandson turns 5 this year hopefully soon he will be swinging a hammer.

[Frosty]

Xeno: If you keep quoting everybody you respond to the mods will take notice. Staying under their radar is to be desired. 

All you guys have some great Grandfather stories, I'm feeling some envy here. John Frost, my Paternal Grandfather was a logger, served overseas in WWI, conceived Dad maybe a year before the Spanish flu took him. Dad didn't even have memories, just stories and a few pictures.

My maternal grandfather earned a purple heart in France during WWI he thought it was a funny story and the medal a bureaucratic or publicity thing. He never showed anybody said he hadn't actually earned it. He was a federal Superior court judge and traveled the circuit, area 9. My biggest memory of him was a gift he brought home to my Grandmother. A redwood seedling, Mom planted in the yard over looking Puget Sound. Everybody said redwoods wouldn't grow there, from Pappy's friends at the university to gardeners, tree experts, etc. Last time I saw it the trunk was a good 7' in diameter and when it was taken out was a bit over 200' tall. 

My biggest memory of Pappy was when he stole my NOSE! That's right stole my nose, I was just sitting in his lap asking questions, listening to stories and he reached up and STOLE MY NOSE!  No lie he showed it to me! Everybody laughed, I was NOT having fun! Then he put it back and everything was okay. 

I with I'd had a chance to get to know him, I was 3 when he died of a heart attack, my little Sister never got to see him Never got HER nose stolen though.

I envy you the opportunity to spend high quality time with your grandson. Times to treasure. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Bantou]

On 5/30/2021 at 12:20 PM, Frosty said:

All my cast iron is new, less than 30yro, Lodge and Deb hates cast iron, so I put it away. <sigh> 

Frosty The Lucky.

If you will grind the Lodge stuff to a mirror finish, you will get better results out of it (or so I’m told). All the Lodge stuff I’ve seen was still rough from the casting process. Wagner and similar “old” brands had a smooth finish straight out of the factory. 

[ThomasPowers]

I picked up a 90? year old skillet at the fleamarket a couple of years ago; marked Erie and a 5 pointed star on the bottom, I gladly paid the US$5 as it was flat and smooth and weighed half of what the lodge one next to it did.

If you season it enough times you can get a smooth non-stick surface even on pitted ironware.  (Learned that from a down hearth cooking expert explaining how to "rescue" old, (pre US Civil War!), abused cast iron ware.)

Re HomeEc:  my brother had to take HomeEc and I remember him getting gigged on a test then he explained how to separate an egg using your hand.  His instructor said No you had to use an "egg separator".  My brother had learned his method watching Julia Child on TV...

[BillyBones]

My granddad dropped hammers on me. Really he did, once was from the hay loft, but i do remember at least 5 or 6 times. 

[Frosty]

One of the ONLY ways to get a buffet from Dad was to do something reckless a second time, I got an open handed swat on the back of my head for climbing down a ladder with tools on the top step. 

Mother and Mom, her mother who lived with us as long as I can remember, never used cast iron though we had it. I never learned to cook on cast iron though I tried a couple times and got yelled at for washing it. 

I took home ec to fill the credit count one semester, we separated eggs with the shells. A whole semester and I didn't learn to fold shirts. Wash them oh yes, fold them? Nope. I took typing 1 for the same reason. 

I've been touch typing almost constantly since, That was one valuable touch of serendipity. The home ec was useful but sure could've covered the necessary basics better. 

Had things been run on my watch, practical home ec and auto shop would have been required classes for everybody. Not what they were teaching for home ec or auto shop. Most people will never have to tune their car or do a brake job but learning how and why to check the fluids safely, change a flat tire, set flares in an emergency, etc. can happen to anybody and be lifesavers. Same for basic living alone: how to buy food at the right rate, what keeps what doesn't, doing laundry correctly, (color fast and permanent press were sci fi when I was gong to school) What cleaners to use on what and why, etc. 

Just give high school grads about to move out on their own a handle on doing basic things their parents took care of. There was NO WAY anybody in our house was going to show me how to do women's work like laundry, ironing and folding.  <GASP!> Mom was born in 1890 and thought the 1920 was modern to the point of crazy. It was but still WAY behind the times. Mother worked full time ad Mom kept the house and us kids. She just didn't know much man's work and boys didn't learn women's work. It JUST WASN'T DONE!

Frosty The Lucky.