The Cast Iron CrazeI’ve been collecting the best of the world of cast iron for decades. This includes classics from Griswold, Wagner and antique brands such as Erie. The newer cast iron has never been impressive until recently when it was determined that millennials would pay top dollar for very pricey extremely high quality cast iron pots and pans.
My son, Buzzkill Jr., is an adamant researcher and narrowed the selection of “best” down to two brands which were given to me as birthday presents as I would be the arbiter of the final top of the top designation. There turned out to be factory waiting lists (what is more millennial than that?) for these pans.
The two brands were Butter Pat Industries and Smithey Ironworks. Both are contrasts to the antique classics in that they have unusual colors tones tending towards reddish. The Butter Pat brand makes the larger pan that is incredibly heavy with a nice surface that makes cooking easy. The Smithey is lighter, seems to hold heat longer and whose surface is smooth as glass. Both are highly recommended but if I could only own one it would be the Smithey. Both seem to be factory seasoned and perpetually non-stick. I’ve read online about how numerous people say they’d rather season the pan themselves and describe a rigmarole to do it. Yeah, ok, as it comes from the factory nothing sticks to the pan and it rinses clean with plain water. But that’s not good enough (eye-roll).
I have yet to do anything to these pans to require re-seasoning but anyone taking an SOS pad to these pans might have issues. You can do online research into “seasoning” a cast iron pan which does not entail much more than heating the pan to a high temperature then oiling it and letting it cool.
Check these pans out.
John | 
