How I got into cast iron cooking, and you can too!

Two years ago, I had no interest whatsoever in cast iron cookware. After all, it's heavy and it's not dishwasher safe-- Who wants that?

But in September of 2008, Hurricane Gustav visited Cajun country, and I was without electricity for 15 days. Luckily I had a sterno stove, but living off canned soup gets really old, really fast!

Then I noticed that my neighbors weren't eating quite so meagerly. They were cooking fried seafood, jambalaya, steaks, chicken, you name it! That's when I quickly realized that I better learn to cook outside. And the recommended equipment was an outdoor burner and cast iron.

So I got a cast iron skillet and pot, with intent to only use it during emergencies, along with the book "Cast Iron Cooking for Dummies." As I was reading this book, I got intrigued and decided to try a recipe in my "emergency only" skillet. I was immediately hooked, and promptly hauled all my other cookware off to goodwill!

One thing that I personally like about it is, you can use metal utensils without worrying about damaging the pan. No more flakes of teflon in my scrambled eggs!