Article on Cast Iron -- thoughts?

http://www.splendidtable.org/story/the-truth-about-cast-iron-yes-you-can-use-a-little-soap

I just saw the above article. Thoughts?

Personally, I never cook with unsaturated fats, because they aren't heat-stable. I season my pan only with saturated fats: lard, tallow, coconut oil, or ghee.

I have a lot of cast iron cookware. I use lard or unsalted butter to season with. I have used soap and water to clean on occasions when the skillet or dutch oven or other pan would show signs of loosing its seasoning. It is true that during heat up, hot spots will be found, but then they will even out as the whole item comes up to temp. Over all I like the article. For the most part I do not use saturated fats to cook with I use olive oil, only cornbread gets cooked in bacon drippings. I do make chili in a dutch oven. Like the article states, if you want to use cast iron for making your tomato sauces or other high acid foods, it is best to have an enameled cast iron pot for those.

Truth be told - with the exception of coma induced time/mold/chemical reaction/rust disasters I never even really use water on my pan.

I keep it well oiled. I wipe it out and dust it off with a cleanish rag or my hands. Sometimes I burn things and they stick. In those cases I just keep burning them until they flake off as char, brush it off, re-oil, repeat.

Also, to reply to the article,

I have found that provide you are using a good source of heat who's surface area is greater than the cast irons (don't use a huge pan on a small burner) it heats super evenly.

Yes, cast iron is awesome for getting a seer on things. On high heat. YOu can also turn the heat down. Lower heat means more even cooking.

Alright. Those are my comments for now.

Wait I lied, I have more:

PLUS

Cast Iron pans will not bow or bend. Sometimes you want a pan which is not flat bottomed. Sometimes you don't. Steel and Copper bottomed pans warp and bow especially if you are going from HOT to WATER. you shouldn't try this with any metals but cast Iron will at least keep true to it's form. I cook. I like my cast Iron.

Great talk about the chemistry of cookware though. I'd love to read an article which focused entirely on that. I find that stuff fascinating.

I've made plenty of creamy-tomatoey-lental curries in my cast Iron. Clean that up quick though. The acids really do do a number on a pan. I lost one of my favorites like that. Well... It's rusty. I'll need to sand it. It's missing it's handle anyway...

Alright I know what I'm doing sitting here for the next half hour.

I thought the article was thought provoking.

Obviously.

Thanks for posting Kevin.

... and now I've listened to the interview in addition to reading the article and The chef and I are in near perfect agreement. Without having know each others opinions...

Cast Iron Skillet!

http://www.richsoil.com/cast-iron.jsp