Warning- This is a long, completely rambling post in which I wax somewhat sentimental. It will also sound like an infomercial for Lodge Manufacturing. But it’s what’s on my mind this afternoon, and what I feel like writing about.

When I was a teenager of dating age, I tended to like the long haired guys that weren’t officially troublemakers, but looked like they were. It drove my mom nuts. We were living in Central Oregon at the time, where we had a little bit of acreage and a small ranch. Horses and pigs mostly, and two dogs under the porch :-).

My mom would frequently “scout out” clean cut country boys for me when she’d be out and about. I have to say that in my experience at least, the country boys had a much harder time keeping their hands to themselves and respecting the word “no” than the long hairs did. Night and day.

As a result of my mom’s efforts, I sort of, kind of dated this guy 16-17 years ago. I think his name was Tim. Tim came from a feed store, rather, he was working at a feed store when my mom spotted him and asked him if he’d take out her daughter. Being a hottie herself, her requests were usually well received.

(I have to say at this point that Liv is reading over my shoulder and is somewhat horrified that my mom “found” my dates. She just said, “please tell me you aren’t going to find MY dates?”).

Fortunately, Tim was a pretty nice guy. Nate (who has ALWAYS had my heart since I met him at 15) was due back from New York in about 6 months when we started hanging out. Nate and I weren’t in a relationship yet, but I had every intention of pursuing him when he returned from his 2 years in New York, so I told Tim up front that I’d be happy to hang out and have fun, but he shouldn’t expect a serious relationship because I had a guy in the wings. He was cool with that and for a few months, we had some good times.

When Nate and I got married a year+ later back in Seattle, we received a package from Tim. He sent us a full line of Lodge cast iron cookware as a wedding gift. A griddle and 4 skillets. I was shocked. And I have to say that almost 16 years later, I love, love, love my cast iron. It’s totally true what they say about cast iron getting better with age. They’re amazing.

A few years ago, I bought two Lodge dutch ovens with feet for camping, the cook table, mitts, and other such stuff for camp cooking which I used over the weekend at our cousins campout. I made a peach cobbler and it was perfect and yummy. I didn’t take a single picture of our campout, unfortunately.

Yesterday, I hauled my skillet out to my sister-in-law’s house for a family potluck and made some fabulous grilled sandwiches*.

This morning, when I got a Lodge Manufacturing email with their current promotion, I clicked on the link to the site and went browsing. There are all sorts of things I could totally use, this among them, which would be completely cool for my grilled sandwiches. Aaaaand, lots of other stuff. I’m going to need to save up for an online shopping spree, it would appear.

Having a very positive Lodge cast iron cooking weekend, and an enjoyable window shopping excursion on their website today got me thinking about my skillets, and Tim, and how I hadn’t even heard of cast iron before he so generously bought it for me, and how glad I am that he did, and I felt like writing about it.

My mom really liked Tim and kept in touch with him. Sadly, he was later in a bad horse accident in an endurance race and ended up in a wheelchair, losing permanent use of his legs. My mom said that in true Tim form, he had the most positive outlook and attitude about it. She had a phenomenal amount of respect for him. Some of those clean cut country boys are really great guys.

*Ciabatta, turkey, tomatoes, spinach, havarti, and Heavenly Horseraddish sauce. (You have to scroll down to get to it, but here’s the label).