You know what’s blacker than Black Friday? Beautiful, glistening, well seasoned cast iron cookware.
Oh, yeah, baby. Screw waiting in line for some discount plastic crap or overpumped electronica that’ll be in a landfill in 6 months anyway. If you must shop, shop for something hewn from the living, molten rock of Earth. Something hefty enough to stop a bullet. Something that holds heat so well a steak will tremble and bow down before it. Something you can pass down to your grandbabies. Something strong and heavy and black enough to rival Black Friday itself.
Shop for cast iron. Something like this Lodge Five Piece Cast Iron Cookware Set. Or better yet, don’t shop at all. Enter to win this set without even having to even put on your pants. Hey, I have a three-year-old. I am well aware of how overblown pants are as a “thing” in our society.
Thankful, Joyful, Turkeyful, etc.
You may remember this set from the recent post on Skillet Brussels Sprouts. I couldn’t get it out of my head, but I couldn’t justify buying it for myself, given that I really do have quite enough cast iron, thank you very much.
Solution: Giveaway!
You see, as I type this post it’s Thanksgiving evening and I’ve had a few glasses of my husband’s excellent homebrew, so I’m feeling all “I love you, man!” towards my readers (except for the douche-waffles, but we are ignoring them). It is a screaming blessing to be the girl behind the keyboard of this blog, to be able to connect with, and inspire, and be inspired by other gardeners and productive homemakers. It is an honor to learn from you and to share what I’ve learned, and to help connect questions to answers.
So, this Thanksgiving I thought I’d give thanks for my readers by giving cast iron, which is – as we all know – the heaviest way to give thanks.
Enter To Win
Update: This contest is now over. Congratulations to winner Benita, who is “thankful that my 28 yr old niece was able to come home for Thanksgiving. She recently finished up radiation from her 3rd major diagnose of cancer since she was 23.”
To win this five piece set of Lodge cast iron, simply leave a comment on this post telling me what you are thankful for this holiday season.
This set includes a 10-inch griddle (excellent for pancakes, crepes, etc.), an 8-inch and 10-inch skillet (excellent for, well, everything) and a 5-Quart Dutch oven with lid (necessary for No Knead Bread). It’s a pretty awesome starter set of cast iron. There is very, very little you couldn’t cook on these pieces, and I say this as someone who cooks on cast iron about three times a day.
And look, I know I don’t have to convince you guys – you already know this – but nonstick is bullshit, ok? It’s not good for you or the people you feed (kids? grandma?). It turns out inferior food, and it scratches if you glare at it strongly enough. And according to the Environmental Working Group, “Toxic fumes from the Teflon chemical released from pots and pans at high temperatures may kill pet birds and cause people to develop flu-like symptoms (called “Teflon Flu” or, as scientists describe it, “Polymer fume fever”).”
Cast iron when well seasoned is also pretty dang nonstick but it doesn’t give you flu-like symptons. It just slightly boosts the iron content of your food which is, unless you are very atypical and drink liver smoothies for breakfast, a very good thing. It also goes from stove to oven to table without missing a beat and will help you cook like you really mean it.
So leave a comment and enter to win. I want to buy someone these cast iron pans.
Fine Print Stuff
This giveaway is for the cookware set described here. Contest entirely self-sponsored by Northwest Edible Life (that’s me!). Contest open until Thursday, December 5th 8 PM PST. Winner will be contacted by email. Contest open to residents of the US only, due to shipping costs. Sorry international readers. I still love you, but cast iron is really, really heavy. Fulfillment of prize via Amazon.com. One entry per person. Multiple entries will be disqualified. Void where prohibited by law, blah blah blah. Best of luck everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving, all y’all. Thanks for being the best readers a blogger could hope for.
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hmmmmm I am thankful for just finding your site….I love cooking….I love gardening…..I love herbs…..I love cooking with cast iron pans…..I have one skillet but I am not sure it is seasoned right???…..I would love to know the right way to take care of a cast iron skillet…..I think there is no better kind of cookware…..it is the old fashion way and I am thankful for all the old fashion ways…..our ancestors did know what they were doing …. very interesting how we are all going back to having our own gardens, cooking our foods ….. having dinner at the dinner table….just like my parents did…..I am thankful for the ancestors that taught us so much….I am thankful for the old fashioned ways coming back….I am thankful for fresh air, fresh food, happy animals & loving thoughts …….Peace & Blessings to ALL!
I am grateful for great abundance in my life: amazing, healthy community; access to tools for creativity & self-expression; access to healing services; all my accrued wisdom of this soul and lifetime thus far; incredibly amounts of healthy food and a place to cook it; the safety, comfort, and durability of the shelter in which I live; the ability and privilege of living by myself in an ample sized home; my jubilant, beautiful, healthy body with which I can sing, dance, play, cry, and do so much more; the inner quiet that always exists within me; knowledge of how to plant seeds and nurture plants as they grow; a very living mind with which to explore information and new and old things…. This is not everything because listing all I am grateful for would take a very long time! I am especially grateful for the ability to change, learn, grow, and transform. I am also grateful for this website! 🙂
I am thankful that I am at a peaceful place in my life. I have spent so much of my life waiting for the “right time” to be happy. Waiting to be thinner, richer, more successful, waiting until I own that perfect piece of property, waiting to be loved, to be accepted, to be enough.
A few months ago, I had a sort of epiphany. I realized I AM ENOUGH! I stopped waiting for someone else to tell me I was good enough and started believing that I already am.
I realized that I choose whether or not I am happy. Me. I choose whether or not I am enough.
And I AM!
Along with this feeling of personal peace and acceptance, has come the ability to step outside my comfort zone. To reach out to others and admit when I need help. And to reach out to still others when they need help. I recently welcomed my nephew into my home. He is a recovering alcoholic who needed a fresh start. Shortly after he moved in I learned that one of my daughters friends has been living in his car. Even though I am struggling financially myself right now, I knew I could make room for this young man. And then over thanksgiving weekend my son that is going through a nasty divorce told me he was going to lose his house. He asked me if he and his seven year old daughter could move in with me until he can save up enough money to possibly buy another home. At first I panicked. Where in the world would I put them? How will I pay my utility bills? How will I feed them?
But then I went back into myself and remembered, I choose. I choose what kind of life to live. And the life I have chosen is a life of love and compassion, of happiness, and giving.
So I will make room. And we will pull our finances together to pay the bills. And how much more could it cost to cook up a little more quinoa and beans?
So what am I thankful for? I am thankful for a house full of people. A house full of life and energy and laughter. And LOVE. I am thankful for love.
I am thankful for my family and soon-to-be husband who just brewed up a big batch of cider on the stove. It was perfect for kicking off the holiday season and our house smells great now. I love your blog! It is so inspiring to us as newbie gardeners.
I am grateful for my friend Frankie. Just over a year ago she bought acreage outside of Arlington, and has built herself a homestead. It is a beautiful location in a clearing in the forest, with several streams and trails criss-crossing the property. She has created a wonderful spiral herb garden, a huge vegetable garden, fruit and nut trees, berries, grapes, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, honey bees and soon she may add goats. She is living my dream, and is a constant source of advice, compassion, inspiration, strength and wisdom. She is my go to person gardening and food processing advice. She makes me believe that my dream can come true even when my family inform me that I don’t really want to live in the country and that I am not very successful at growing my own food. They also encourage me to dump chemicals on my food and planet, whereas through Frankie’s efforts I have become an organic gardener. She is mentor, inspiration and although we are not related, she is my sister. For all of the above, and for so much more that she provides to me, I am thankful. Francesca Gennotti, you rock!
I am thankful for our little 3.5 month old girl. We are looking forward to her first Christmas 🙂
I’m thankful for my health and the health of my family. I’ve realized over the past few years that time is ticking and people wont be around forever.
It’s time to make time for what counts.
I am thankful for the opportunity to become more self sufficient. Goats, chickens, a steer – all after my 50th birthday!
I am thankful this year for a lot of things. First and foremost I am thankful for those that love and support me, and even those that direct me unwittingly down the path that is life. Myself, my wife, and our children weathered another year despite the loss of my day job. In a way it brought about our five year plan to have me the stay-at-home dad/farmer and she the corporate bigwig. She went from self-employed to General Manager in less than 8 months. I went from unhappy corporate stooge to ecstatic father/farmer/gardener. I got my weight under control by switching to a paleo diet, and consequently I am able to think clearer and work harder. It’s all looking up. Thankful doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel.
I am thankful for every day I wake, every breath I take, the family and friends I am blessed with, my beloved dogs and all that GOD has given. I am also thankful for the ability to find some wonderful people who blog and share so well from the heart. Thank you!
Thankful for the opportunity to continue to learn, bit by bit, how to live life and build it into something worth living. Thankful especially for the people in life without whom this constant learning and building would not be possible: family, friends, mentors, even the jerks who make us realize that there are better ways of being.
I’m thankful that, after being through a difficult deployment, I am finding my way back to health thanks to my husband, my family & friends, and sites (like NorthWest Edibles) that draw my attention to the things existing in our society that I should avoid, for the sake of my health, as well as to things that are good for me, but which I hadn’t discovered before now.
I’m thankful to have been raised in a simpler time, when having less meant knowing more. As the youngest of six, I was allowed to be wild, run out into the fields, play in the pond, pick berries, and get dirty. I was never told I couldn’t do or make something, just that I had to figure out how to do it on my own because my parents and siblings were busy on their own projects. I am very thankful I was so lucky to be raised in the country.
I am thankful for so many things this year. It has been a difficult one with the loss of my mother and some other significant people in my life but the things I’m thankful for are the simple joys of life: the laugh of a child, the fresh juicy taste of homegrown fruit, a chicken running loose in the yard, cooking a meal and being able to say “I grew that”. Just being still for a few moments and reflecting. The weather and a good lungful of fresh air. I have been enriched this year by getting quiet and enjoying small blessings….
Thank you for letting me tell that! 🙂
I’m thankful for blogs like this!
I am thankful for my family friends, and baby kale that’s surviving even though I planted it too late. I am thankful for Sluggo, dark chocolate, and red, red, wine. Right now I’m thankful for a warm down comforter because it’s freakin’ cold outside in Seattle!
I am thankful I have a job I am passionate about and that I love. (yep, what’s not to love about a bunch of third graders?) I am so thankful that my children are healthy and continuously surprising me. But most of all I am thankful for my two beautiful grandchildren who make me laugh.
I’m thankful for health. This past year my husband’s had 2 major surgeries and both of us have made a concerted effort to eat better, lose weight, work on strength training and we’re succeeding! I’m thankful for your site…local to me, and full of fun and practical ideas, hints, and helps, and the food is wonderful!! Thank you so much for blogging faithfully and being the inspiration you are.
We’re thankful this season for my wife and I to be together. We retired from a school system this year and left the same day. Now we live in the country, kinda like starting all over again.
I am thankful for friends, family, employment in a job I enjoy, and kind people (like you!) on the internet.
I’m a newbie here!! What a great way to be greeted, a contest for free cast iron pans!!
I recently (1 1/2 ago) beat cancer for the third time! The first time I was very young, 21 and didn’t know much then or have the property knowledge about how to take care of myself. Fast forward 20+ years and I’ve had Melanoma Cancer twice. Now I have all the right information and I’m making drastic changes. I’ve lost 30+ lbs and I only use organic things on my body, coconut oil, toothpaste, shampoo etc. I also watch what goes in my body, fruits, veggies, olive oil, etc. Lastly, I am learning how to better prepare the good food I put in my body!! We have always used our cast iron for when we went camping, I don’t know why we never used it for everyday use?! We have recently passed down all the cast iron cookery to our eldest son and his girlfriend, so it would be great to win new ones! I am thankful for my husband and my two boys!! They have been my rock!!
Thank you!!
I’m thankful for the joy of watching my kids grow into adults. My older one started college and my younger started high school. My husband and I are loving this new stage in their young adulthood.
I am thankful for being married to and spending every day with a woman whom I love and respect with which I share many life values with. I am thankful that we will soon have our first child and both wish to raise them in a highly self reliant lifestyle and in a home, not just a house.
I am thankful for my combined family. Failed relationships aren’t always bad, making it important to focus on what really matters is all it takes .
I am using Lodge cast iron round skillet for some time and I love my skillet. I want to get some more cast iron cookware by Lodge and incorporate in my daily cookware set. It would be awesome if I win this set. I would like to thank ‘Northwest Edible Life’ for arranging this contest.
I’m thankful for the special friend I have this year to share my favorite holiday activities with me.
I am thankful for the whole holiday season–the family, the lights, the songs, the good cheer, even the stress. Bring it on! I love this time of year.
This year I am grateful for so many things- my wonderful husband, getting my nursing license, our first decent apartment, and the fact that we have lots of windows to let in light for my plants. It has a tiny kitchen with no yard or balcony, but I am so thankful for my home and my little window garden! But most of all I am thankful to have one last year to cook for my uncle who doesn’t have much time left, and another year with my grandmother and other aging relatives. I have food, a home, a garden and people I love around me. One could hardly ask for more… Except maybe some good cast iron with which to cook for my friends and family.
I’m thankful for the little things in my life that are amazing. Snuggling with my puppy. Curling up on the couch with my husband. Every day I feel lucky.
I am thankful for lots of things, but most of all for my grandprents. I’m so lucky to still have them around!
I am thankful for my little family, and for all the yummy food that we have access to.
I’m thankful my husband has a job that supports us so that I can stay home with our kids. I’m thankful that my kids are healthy and bring me joy and a purpose for my life. I’m thankful for being raised by awesome parents who have shown me what it’s like to be a parent!
demureprincess7(at)gmail(dot)com
I am thankful that I have a loving husband who works hard for me and comes home to me every night. I am thankful to have 4 sweet girls who are my best friends. I am thankful to be healthier this year. I am thankful that my dad survived a stroke this year. I will have a house full of friends and family this holiday season, and after my skillet handle breaking….I would be so thankful to have a nice set of cookware to cook with. I love that it is cast iron and much healthier for my kids. I am thankful for this chance…I couldn’t imagine winning.
ninigossett at gmail dot com
I’m thankful for my family and friends, many of whom I got to see and spend time with when I was home for Thanksgiving. I’m thankful that I live close enough to home to be able to visit more than once a year, as for many years I was only there during the Christmas holidays. I’m also thankful that my future, which has been pretty murky and unclear, is starting to come together and offer the promise of change…not that where I’m at is so bad, it’s just not where I really want to be anymore. And I’m thankful for windows at work so I can watch the chubby little juncos bouncing around and stuffing sunflower seeds into their beaks in the snow.
Oh, this giveaway makes my heart skip a beat. I have been dreaming of cast iron lately. I only have a tiny 2 egg size that was my great grandmother’s.
I am so grateful for the many blessings that my family receives on a regular basis. We have been surrounded by generous people who come out of the woodwork when you least expect it. We have had life changing events in the past couple of years that has shown us that God’s blessings are absolutely everywhere, it is just a matter of noticing them and thanking Him for them.
Ok, that is my sermon for the day. 🙂
I am thankful that you are giving away cast iron. It is great to cook with, good for “tenderizing” tough meat, and you can defend your backyard flock with it when yielded properly (see the movie Tangled for other options too)!
I am thankful for my family this year. As everyone gets older, it’s wonderful to see all the changes and expansions of our family. As some are in ill-health, I’m especially grateful that we will have at least one more holiday season to celebrate together.
I am also very thankful for you, Erica. Your blog is so well written and inspires me to be a better person.
I am so very thankful for my family in all of their diversity.
I’m thankful for a warm, safe place to live 🙂
I am thankful for my many health problems over the last few years culminating in a fantabulous hip surgery this past Summer which put me out of commission for lo these many months. That wasn’t sarcasm; I really am thankful for the health maladies that middle age has brought to me as they have made me a stronger, more educated person.
Thanks to these health issues I have learned more about diet and health than I ever knew before and I am now much, much happier for it. The revelation that much of our health is right in our own hands is a gift that I will always cherish. 🙂
Thanks so much! I would love to win!
These cast iron cookware are very durable. My wife would love it!
I am so thankful to God that I got to live long enough to see my daughter doing a fine job raising her kids.
I am so thankful for my job!
I would love to win the set! I am so thankful for 5 years of marriage and the kids we have. It has not always been easy but he is so amazing and patient!
I am thankful for my family because without them I’d be nothing. I am thankful my health is getting better and I am happy I joined the slow food movement!
Good morning, lucky for me I am a little late commenting on this article as I was able to spend an entire week with the people I am most thankful of. My friends and family, for the most part, live in another state and my husband and I were finally able this year to take 7 days off of work to spend with them. That being said I am most thankful for my friends and family and especially my husband, with out him I would never see my family over the holidays, we live in a snowy area and travel is difficult over the winter months.
I am thankful for so may things: a wonderful job managing my neighborhood farmers market, my wonderful 20 month old son, loving husband, and great friends. What more could a girl want besides new cast iron cookware, of course.
I am thankful for the big kitchen in my new place, the kitties we finally have, and a fiance who takes care of me when I need it. I’m also thankful that I really enjoy spending time with my fiance’s family, since I now have two awesome families and deciding what to do on holidays is HARD!
I am thankful that my parents, difficult as they can sometimes be, are around. My partners dad died suddenly this spring and it’s been hard. His mother’s in Alaska. My parents are two hours away and it’s just so much easier.