You Can Totally Use Soap On A Cast-Iron Pan

My guest this week on the official Ask a Clean Person podcast is Daniel Gritzer, the culinary director at Serious Eats, who joined me to share the vast amount of knowledge he’s collected over the years about caring for cast-iron cookware. New, old, seasoned, unseasoned, rusted, you name it—Daniel can tell you exactly what to do, and what not to do, to ensure that your stuff is in the tippiest-toppiest shape it can be.

Over at Serious Eats, they’re real, real serious about their cast iron. (They’re also real, real serious about their obsessive approach to cooking, as evidenced by the sheer size of Managing Culinary Director Kenji Lopez-Alt’s new cookbook, The Food Lab. It is monstrous, in the best possible way.) As promised in the episode, I’m including their definitive articles about caring for and restoring cast-iron pans, as well as Daniel’s recent recipe for Southern-style cornbread, which is, of course, the perfect thing to make in your cast-iron skillet.

Before we got into the meat of this episode’s discussion, though, Daniel owed us a few more restaurant horror stories that we didn’t get to the last time he joined me in the studio. To hear those truly gruesome tales, please give the episode a listen here or over at iTunes, where you can also subscribe. (Unfortunately, the show featuring Daniel and the mop bucket full of salad greens is not available online.)

Do you have something you’d like to hear discussed on Ask a Clean Person: The Podcast? Email me at [email protected] with the subject line CLEANCAST. Do you like what you heard? Please consider leaving a rating in the iTunes store when you head over there to subscribe!

Jolie Kerr is Deadspin’s resident cleaning expert and the author of the book My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha (Plume). Follow her on Twitter, or contact her via email at [email protected].

Photo via Sam Woolley.

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