During quarantine, we've been doing a lot of online shopping. Cat food, baby formula, retail therapy... it has become routine for me to check our mail room around 3:30pm and discover 3 or so packages addressed to us. We don't think much of it.
The Friday before Mother's Day was just like any other Friday. I went downstairs and noticed we had many packages, most of them addressed to my wife since she does the bulk of the Amazon shopping. Lugging them upstairs was a bit of a hassle; one of these boxes seemed quite heavy, but I trust my wife and her spending habits, as she's much more sensible than I.
Once upstairs, it was time to rip into these packages, namely the heavy one to see what the heck was in there. I grabbed the scissors from the junk drawer, used the edge to tear the tape, and opened the flaps.
"Honey?" I asked. "Did you order a cast iron skillet?"
"No."
My heart sank. This standard size cast iron skillet suddenly felt like anthrax. Sitting inside the pan were a red removable heat-proof silicone handle and a chain metal scrubber for maintenance.
I triple checked the packing label to make sure I didn't steal someone else's mail, but clear as day was my wife's full name printed neatly on the sticker. She's got her middle name set up in Amazon, so this wouldn't have been strange if she had ordered it. But she didn't. We put on our Nancy Drew brains and got to thinking.
"Text your Aunt Bri," I suggested. "She uses our Amazon account." But a simple search of our Amazon account showed no signs of cast iron.
"What about my mother?" my wife added. "She's always ordering stuff on Amazon and forgetting about it." But my mother-in-law was just as perplexed as us.
"I'm going to text my mother and see if she's got any idea," I added. Nothing.
"Aunt Clare?" my wife asked. Nope.
What the hell happened here? A cast iron skillet is one thing, but it was a cast iron skillet with accessories from different brands, meaning someone thought this entire purchase through. This almost looked like it was meant to be a gift.
After deciding this skillet wasn't going to kill us, we put it right on top of the turquoise enameled cast iron skillet we've had for about a year. We now had cast iron siblings.
Initially, we were planning on letting the new skillet collect dust. Cast iron maintenance can be tedious, which is why we own one with an enamel finish like a dutch oven for easy scrubbing. But then my wife suggested we make pizza for dinner, and I was reminded of the cast iron pizza method. My wife and I can never decide on one pizza to eat, so the idea was hatched: we have two cast irons, let's make two pizzas. Using the recent Food Network Magazine's grilled pizza insert for inspiration, we concocted two pizzas: a Mexican chipotle and chorizo pizza topped with avocado and corn, and a "substitute" version of the Peach-Burrata-Speck pizza, using tangerines, mozzarella, and serrano ham.
So, which skillet made better pizza?
Honestly, they were equally delicious with crispy, sturdy crusts. The toppings were so different that it's hard to compare. The Mexican pizza was punchy and spicy, offering a playfulness with its variety of toppings, but there was something equally delightful about the other pie, with creamy garlic sauce oozing into the bubbling blanket of mozzarella and tangy tangerines.
The best part is that this particular pizza method doesn't wreak havoc on the cast iron, so clean up was actually easy. I also saved the manufacturer's care instructions and shoved it in our junk drawer for easy reference.
At the end, I can't be mad at the ghost that sent us a fresh cast iron pan. Unless it was a stalker. In which case, go away.
With bubbly cheese and Mystery Inc.'s number on speed dial,
~c.j.
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