My ex is obsessive about cleanliness and genuinely enjoyed doing the dishes. She was also a terrible cook. So we had an arrangement where I’d cook and she’d do the dishes.
We quickly had to ammend the rules so that I also cleaned the cast iron because she’d obsessively scrub the pan for an hour and ruin it.
I trained (for lack of a better word) my husband to wash the cast iron without wrecking the finish. He used to leave it soaking, I didn’t freak out but told him that was bad for them and he could just toss them into the oven dirty if needed and I’d deal with them (like you, I am the cook not the clean) but then he’d want to make eggs or something and the pan would be dirty so he asked how to. I got a chainmail scrubber and he loves doing it now because he loves the chainmail scrubber. Like - I will sometimes use soap on mine because I can judge the finish but he will not put soap now, will only scrape and has begun to love the pans too, after so many years he realizes because they never wear out just get better.
I did have to reset a couple of mine once, burn off the seasoning and sand them and restore and yes they looked like this picture. It was terrifying but they got great again. Such durable goods they are!
My ex is obsessive about cleanliness and genuinely enjoyed doing the dishes. She was also a terrible cook. So we had an arrangement where I’d cook and she’d do the dishes.
We quickly had to ammend the rules so that I also cleaned the cast iron because she’d obsessively scrub the pan for an hour and ruin it.
I trained (for lack of a better word) my husband to wash the cast iron without wrecking the finish. He used to leave it soaking, I didn’t freak out but told him that was bad for them and he could just toss them into the oven dirty if needed and I’d deal with them (like you, I am the cook not the clean) but then he’d want to make eggs or something and the pan would be dirty so he asked how to. I got a chainmail scrubber and he loves doing it now because he loves the chainmail scrubber. Like - I will sometimes use soap on mine because I can judge the finish but he will not put soap now, will only scrape and has begun to love the pans too, after so many years he realizes because they never wear out just get better.
I did have to reset a couple of mine once, burn off the seasoning and sand them and restore and yes they looked like this picture. It was terrifying but they got great again. Such durable goods they are!
I can usually boil water in them to soften stuff.
It helps that I’ve got an inductive stove that will boil water in like 30 seconds, so there really isn’t any reason to soak them.