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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This thanksgiving I was thankful that the difference a year can make! In friendship, love and life. I am thankful for randomness, chaos and absurdity. And the things lying in wait around the corner that we have not yet discovered!
I’m thankful for the second chance to share my life with my first love. It hasn’t been easy after so many years apart (and kids, exes, and a wide variety of obstacles), but moving from Florida to the PNW has turned out to be a greater blessing and adventure than I could have ever dreamed!
I am so very grateful to be spending time with my family and my Dad who was just diagnosed with liver cancer. It may by the last one and I’m loving every minute of it. Nothing beats family.
I’m thankful for wonderful friends and family, and since I’ve recently moved, I’m doubly thankful for technology that let’s me stay in touch! Thankful that, although I don’t have room to garden at my new home, I have access to amazing farmer’s markets year-round!
Growing up my grandma made almost everything in cast iron pans. The taste was so much better than cooking in pans today. I’d love to win this set and make up a batch of my grandma’s skillet fried chicken, sounds warm and delicious right now!
I am thankful that after a year of unemployment my dh has a JOB!!!!
I am thankful for self-sufficiency…or the starts of it! We now make our own soap, our own kombucha, our own jerky and dried fruits, our own bread, and most of the meat we eat is wild-hunted. We are learning how to grow our own produce on a small plot. I am succeeding more than failing now in cooking and gardening. This year has really solidified to me how important this way of life is to me, and how much it means to me to be getting good at it.
I am also so, so grateful for the community I’ve found in this learning process! Y’all are amazing and inspiring.
I’m thankful for pretty much everything. We have everything we need, we are warm and dry and we always have enough to eat. I enjoy my children and my husband is a good man. I have an interesting part-time job and time to cook real food and watch a little garden grow. Life is good. 🙂
I am thankful that my son and daughter in law live close enough by that they can borrow my cast iron 😉
I am thankful for great friends that I was able to spend time with on Thanksgiving. I haven’t been able to spend a holiday with my family in a long time so the friends that become family are so important to me.
Love these…
I am thankful for my family & friends, a roof over our heads and food in our bellies! Thanks for the chance to win! I will give these to my sister who lost almost all of her kitchen stuff in an apartment fire a few months ago!
I am grateful for so many things! Today I am especially grateful for my family, friends, and community who love me unconditionally. I am grateful for my health and my ability to give love and serve others. I am grateful for a supportive universe that constantly gives me opportunities to grow :).
I am grateful to be alive and on the planet at this time when the Internet and social media make it hard for evil to hide and easy for us to share blessings, good news, and helpful/harmless ideas. I am grateful to be part of the increasing consciousness about, and expansion of sustainable, non-gmo and/or organic farming and gardening. Thank YOU for asking this good, good question! Come on TIPPING POINT :-)!!
I am thankful for new beginnings. Life doesn’t always turn out the way we planned, restarting can be difficult, but I’m thankful for life and the opportunity to live a new dream.
I am thankful for family, friends, food and freely shared knowledge on growing and sharing. Thank you NWEdible!
I’m thankful I got a tiny garden bed at my apartment this year and could start growing food for the first time. I’m grateful for my husband and for the fact that through diet changes I haven’t had a migraine in seven months!
I am thankful for family, friends, and food. Your blog gives me good ideas, and I’m thankful for that, too.
Hey, wanted to say how much I enjoy your wonderful posts.
I am thankful for still having my partner of 16 yrs with me. At a busy time in our lives, he had congestive heart failure. This isn’t something you come back from but he’s still walking and talking, for which I am eternally grateful for!
We are thankful to our amazing Landlady, who has given us shelter and a place to call home. My love of gardening and art has given us a great bond! She has never grown her own vegetable or herbs until we moved in.
I am thankful for the chance to be able to grow some of our food organically even if we can’t eat that way all the time.
I am thankful for all of our friends that have supported us and our holistic vision of what a community can be when it tries.
I am thankful for the chance to be better and better every day that I wake up, breathing and still able to do the things I love and care about.
I am also thankful that there are people like you out there, sharing information and news about all sorts of amazing things happening and warning us about some of the worst stuff out there. Keep up the wonderful work you are doing.
I’m thankful I finally have a job. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to find one! But now things are looking up for me and my little family (hubby and almost one year old). It has definitely been a good week.
I’m thankful to simply stick my hand on my neck and feel a pulse. Seriously, life if so beautiful and horrible and everything in between. I’m so thankful to be alive and have the chance to experience it all.
I am thankful that I have incredible friends and family, who lift me up and keep me going, to spend the holidays with.
I am thankful for life and for love, for all the ups & downs, for the things I have and the things I do not. Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours 🙂
I am thankful that I an share what I have with my friends as we buoy each other up in tough times and share the laughs through it all(often over some foraged and homemade goodies!)
I am thankful to be surrounded by my incredible family and the best friends in the world.
Hello! This year my gratitude reads like a Hallmark card. A couple of reminders this year of the fleeting nature of life have helped me focus on what is truly important: my beautiful son is the nucleus of joy I circle; my husband who loves me unconditionally; my stepchildren who are doing their brave best to navigate two households, two sets of rules, and still present their fresh strong faces to the world; mom and dad who have aged into the kind of parents they always hoped to be. Finally, for gratitude itself, which makes me humble and compels me to share my bounty with those less fortunate.
I am thankful for the legacy of faith my parents left me with before they died.
I’m thankful for your website.
I’m thankful for my extended family, as my daughter and her daughter bring constant joy to my life.
I’m thankful for my friends and community.
I’m thankful for having a career doing exactly that which still brings me passion.
And most of all, I’m thankful for my wife whom I love dearly, now and forevermore.
I am Thankful for my family and friends especially my wife Shelli!! I am thankful we made it through the Bastrop Complex fires of 2011 !! I am thankful that I am alive and have a job!! I am thankful for everyday I am given on this earth.. I AM THANKFUL !!
I am thankful for a great daughter.
I am so thankful for my friends. Family is great, of course, but when they live far away, you can count on your friends. 🙂
Let’s see – I’m thankful for a satisfying career with lots of new adventures; I love your blog and dream of actually being around enough to garden more (I moved to the Puget Sound area last year), but in the meantime just this week ended up in a canoe between Liberia and Guinea to check out the weekly market on the other side and try to help small Liberian oil palm farmers find new markets. For now I fill my foodie itches in the Pacific Northwest, between international adventures, full of foraging, farmer’s markets, and budget asian grocery stores. (I did plant egyptian onions along the carport of my rental house . . . there are a few that have survived the neglect.)
I am thankful for my house, which has a large yard we are slowly transforming into our own little urban farm.
I love cooking with cast iron, I only have an old one that was given to me many years ago. I enjoy cooking and would love to have the set.
I am thankful for the hole in my cookware collection that will ultimately be filled by cast iron pans!
I’m thankful like every American for their family and friends this time of year you take a look and reflect on everything in your life but the big thing I’m grateful for is waking up each morning able to get out of bed with my health going down I’m grateful that I’m still here on earth
I am thankful for running water. I own a food cart and have to cart out and in all water by hand. When I was doing the mounds of dishes after Thanksgiving, I was sincerely thankful that I had fresh running water and access to the sewer system.
I’m also hugely thankful to the many people that have made my business successful and sustainable as a career.
My husband has been ill for 3 years, we are at home a lot now, it has been a long journey and I have learned a lot. I am thankful he is recovering,I am thankful to be able to be home and to have the time to learn all about herbs, baking,cookin,playing my guitar.
I am thankful for great love.
I am thankful for my family and the life that I have. I am thankful to be able to live in a time of great technology where people can learn new skills and knowledge from others who are willing to share.
Thanks, schmanks. I’m greatful and dispairing for every lovely, amazing and heartbreaking day. Blown away by human kindness and generosity one minute and crushed by hatred and venom the next. Happy to have found the little oasis of good that is NW Edible.
I am thankful for my wonderful family and of course my amazing husband who has helped me to realize my dreams and is responsible for the sucess I have had in the last year. I am thankful he is here with me this holiday season when so many other soldiers are away from their families, I know how difficult that can be. We must pay our respects and give thanks to all of our military and the sacrifices they make for all of us.
Because you can’t have enough cast iron cookware!
I am thankful for so many things…
– My son who reminds me of the simple pleasures in life as only a child can.
– the fact that I live in a country where I am free to express my opinion without reprisal and that all people are equal (okay – we are still working on that one).
– bloggers like you who teach me things that I don’t know and inspire me.
– my job for allowing me to do some of the things that I want to do.
– my friends – they may not be many but the ones that I have are invaluable.
Gawsh, what am I not thankful for! Besides of course the obvious things, so thankful for a roof over my family’s heads, good food served at our table, the health and happiness of my four children and partner (such amazingly important things)! I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving, my fellow community that continues to be artful and creative. I am constantly amazed and inspired by my friends, constantly pushing social norms and presenting art from the creative fringes. They remind me to cultivate creativity in my humble daily life, weather its making something unique in the kitchen, to dancing in my living room, to painting my walls bright vivid colors. Yes, I am thankful for art and expression of human spirit, in all shapes and color spectrums.
Even though so many of my family members are now gone I am thankful for all of the life’s lesson they taught me so that I can go on happy, content and educated on how to take care of myself.
Thankful for my husband, my family & my friends.
They are the great gifts of my life.
We have a Lodge grill pan that we love, but would love to add a few more pieces to our Lodge set! Happy holidays
I am incredibly grateful for my friends/family. I’ve had a chaotic and emotionally difficult year. A very close friend died unexpectedly this summer, I’ve moved 3 times (which as you gardeners know is a catastrophe) on top of a host of other things. There have been fantastically good things too, and I keep reminding myself of that. My family and friends have been an amazing web of support. without them i don’t know how I would have survived.
I am thankful for all my homesteading, food canning, garden growing, soap making, frugal living, home brewing, critter caring, chicken loving, dehydrator building, healthy eating blogger friends I’ve found here on the net.
Especially you, who’s not afraid to call a douche waffle a douche waffle. LOL
I am thankful that we found a medical miracle that has kept my dad around for the past 3 years and that my family is still all here.