Writing Life

The topic of my June Writing Life column was my wife’s longtime love affair with cast-iron cookware. The essay began its life as a poem. Oftentimes, to put my thoughts about a subject in order, I try to write a poem about it. My preferred poetic mode is the sonnet, which forces me to compress all my thoughts on a subject into a scant fourteen lines of iambic pentameter (i.e. lines that average 10 syllables each). But my thoughts about my wife run deep and wide and it is often impossible to confine them to a mere fourteen lines of poetry (or even 1500 words of prose, for that matter). Such was the case with “Seasoning,” the poem I wrote about Julie’s attachment to cast-iron cookware. But though it is more than three times the length of a sonnet, “Seasoning” nonetheless contains only about a sixth as many words as the “The Rules: How To Have A Cast-Iron Marriage,” the Writing Life essay that it eventually gave birth to. Oftentimes I find that the poems I write about a subject are much more personal and intimate than the essays they eventually evolve into. Take a look at the poem below and see whether or not you agree with me:

SEASONING

My wife collects flea-market cooking ware.
Cast iron is the kind she likes the best:
Stewpots, griddles, skillets, and the rest.
But oftentimes the iron’s been scraped bare
Of oil and has taken on some rust.
In that case, some reseasoning’s a must.
She scours it and oils it and bakes it
For an hour at 300, then she takes it
Back out to let it cool all the way,
Performing the same ritual next day.
She tells me, “Rust is slow fire, it can eat
Through frying pan and griddle with cold heat.
But seasoning can keep the fire at bay
So that it doesn’t burn right through the pot.”
“A varnish does the same for wood,” I say,
“To keep it safe from dampness and dry rot.”
(She speaks Kitchen, I speak Woodworkese,
But we translate each other with relative ease.)
Her father was an iron-pot man too,
And he’s the one who showed her how to clean
A pot with just plain water so the sheen
Of oil isn’t lost. When he was through
He dried his cookware over open flame,
And that is why she’s always done the same.
He told her not to store leftover meals
In iron pots, or else the oil that seals
The moisture out can be corrupted by
The acids in the foods as they break down.
He taught her to maintain a watchful eye
For anything that turns the iron brown.
He’s gone now, but she’s still the dutiful daughter
And faithful to the methods that he taught her.
She never keeps the lid and pot together
In storage, for in sultry spells of weather
Humidity invades a lidded pot.
He told her, “You should care for what you’ve got.”
And so she does and so our iron lasts
Although it’s been through slow and rapid heat,
From frigid cold to sudden oven blasts.
It’s served up both the savory and sweet,
Been tempered by both flame and fiery air,
And with proper seasoning will serve us till
Our hearts and appetites have both grown still
And off it goes to one more antique faire.

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