My wife, no joke, asked for a skillet for Christmas. How special is that? How do you think it made me feel as I was watching all the jewelry and perfume commercials during the season and asked my wife what she wanted for Christmas and for her to reply, “A frying pan”?

OK, so I went shopping.

There are dozens of frying pans out there ranging from less than $20 to over a $100. I like the $20 figure a lot, and the options are as varied as buying a new car. You have aluminum and various alloys, heat indicating spots, assorted handles, bottoms with gridded surfaces, non-stick coatings that are used on the space shuttle, leather interior, dash mounted GPS units; oh wait, that’s the car again, and I’m baffled.

I didn’t want to be too cheap, I mean that’s why she asked for one for Christmas isn’t it, to hint that something as mundane as a frying pan would be a special gift to her; sort of like water in the desert? I was looking on the upper end, and cringing at the prices. Some of these things ought to take the food out of the freezer, thaw it, start itself cooking and add the ingredients when needed. I could hire a personal chef for the price of some of these.

I was standing there getting more and more confused when I noticed way down on the bottom shelf, all alone over on the far right, the old standard — the cast iron skillet. I was drawn to it immediately. It was simple, not about to orbit the earth on its own, and it was in my price range, which is to say cheap.

I have cooked with cast iron Dutch ovens for years so I know the importance of seasoning, the process whereby the porous cast iron becomes sealed and as non-stick as any space coating. It takes years to get there, but once you do, nothing cooks better — nothing — and the maintenance, other than wiping it out with a towel, is non-existent. The flavors, I swear, are more robust and pronounced in every way. There’s nothing like cast iron. I bought it; now I have to sell it to the Admiral.

How do you wrap a cast iron skillet to conceal what it truly is? You don’t. You do like Peyton Manning on his commercial where he presents the obvious football saying, “You’ll never guess what it is; not in a million years.”

She didn’t either, or was kind enough to pretend she didn’t, and on Christmas morn, she was delighted, and so was I. Not only was I imagining the treats to come from such a piece of cookware, but I was getting off cheap.

We have had a wonderful time seasoning the pan together, and even cleaning it together. She’s needed some teaching, I mean it’s a guy thing to just wipe a pan and let it sit. It’s been an adjustment for her, but she’s getting the hang of it, coming over to the better way, and the food is wonderful.

I don’t care what anyone says, food cooked in a cast iron skillet like grandma used to do just tastes better. Maybe it’s the seasonings left over from previous usage, or maybe the even heat, or just the love and warmth of something from the past, but it’s the best Christmas gift we’ve gotten in a long time, and did I mention it was cheap?

David Wilson Atwood is a local freelance writer whose human interest columns offer a unique perspective. He may be contacted at: david@starchasers.us