On a Dutch Oven and Apex Predator

August 24, 2020

“Will you please just put this pan in the basement?”

That was my request to my husband, and the pan in question was Cooper’s Griswold No. 9 cast iron Dutch oven. Hours earlier, our world—our family—had imploded. Days earlier, Coop had made supper in that pan, but he’d neglected to clean up. I knew there was old, dead food rotting in the pan. I couldn’t care. I couldn’t make myself deal with the pan. Instead, I banished it to the basement with an open-ended sentence.

Turns out, the sentence was three years, nine months, one week. Release from banishment was spontaneous but firm. I rummaged around the basement—that pan had been down there haunting me all that time—took the pan outside, and began dealing with its sorry, banished state.

The food was petrified, unidentifiable, and not at all disgusting. I’m no fan of surprises, but that was a pleasant surprise; I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting after all time, but it wasn’t innocuous food pebbles. Coop’s wooden-handled, sharp-edged spatula (which he probably “borrowed” from my grandparents’ house when he lived there) was also in the pan and more than a little crusty and rusty.

I’d researched cast iron restoration methods, and a vinegar soak seemed a good way to start. Dutch ovens are big-ish, so I loaded up on Aldi gallon jugs of vinegar, found an old tote, added some water, and set about restoring the pan I’d banished and Coop had loved. Seriously—he went to a flea market in another state to buy the thing.

So why bother with that Dutch oven now?

Beats me; it was just time. That seems to be how this grief thing goes.

Cooper loved cast iron. When he died, I was just figuring out how to cook with it and he was my grudging instructor. Three weeks earlier, I’d bought a big skillet—big enough for a good meal and leftovers. Although I no longer need a skillet that size, I use it at least once a week and will keep it forever. I’m keeping that Dutch oven, too. In the past four years, I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking with cast iron. I don’t know why that matters to me, but it does.

Such a silly thing, but sometimes (so damn often) the silly little things are actually the most important.

Last week on vacation, a bald eagle hung out in our cove every day but our last day. Mostly, he did what eagles do: he perched high in a tree and looked down on us with scorn. Sometimes he swooped near the water, but mostly he watched us. One day, though, he came to our side of the cove and settled on the shoreline while we bobbed in the lake. Naturally, I deployed in stealth mode and paddled my way closer and closer to the eagle. When his shore leave was up, he took flight, but for a few glorious seconds, he was a foot or two above the water and flying straight at me. We made eye contact.

If I were smarter, I would’ve been scared. After all, he could peel my face right off my head. I wasn’t, though. There was a connection and I didn’t really think he’d get me. Was this close encounter some kind of sign from Cooper? Probably not, but for the rest of the day I felt a rare peace, a peace undisturbed by the fact that the eagle flew across the cove and loudly eliminated a duck. And, as I try to do (have to do) with Cooper memories, I’ve focused on the connection, the eye contact, the experience, rather than the duck takedown. The next day, the eagle spent the day in a tree across the cove, watching and judging, and then it was gone. Think what you wish.

Silly things. Important things. Kooky things?

The eagle lives four hours away. Will he be there to judge us during our 2025 vacation? Hard to say. I’m glad he hung out with us this year. I’ve made one loaf of bread (olive loaf, if you’re interested) in the restored cast iron. I’ll use it again when I feel like it, but I know the pan is clean, seasoned, and ready to use. It won’t haunt me from the basement; it’s now part of my cast iron collection.

June is a hard month packed with horrible memories. June begins the countdown to August 24th. For whatever reason, this year I felt I was reliving June 2020. The days Coop was missing, the day he came home, the awful night in the emergency room and his week in the hospital—this year, I could feel the worry and stress and uncertainty in a way I haven’t other years. Every day seemed to shred my soul. Maybe those emotions rendered me more vulnerable to the wiles of an old pan and an apex predator. Who knows.

Silly things. Important things. Kooky things.

What I do know is this life is hard—brutal, even. June should be my favorite month but can’t. Peace and joy are elusive, but somehow I found them in that old pan and apex predator. I’m still working on the crusty, rusty spatula.