The Cast Iron Guy was my pandemic project.
I needed an optimistic moment in every day, something thru with to look out onto a crazy world and find something solid and reliable.
If you’ve come here looking for in depth cast iron cooking advice, or one of those guys who uses electrolysis to do amazing things restoring cast iron pans, or somebody who builds a raging bonfire in his backyard and slays a piece of meat to perfection… well, you might be a bit disappointed.
If you’ve come here looking for a guy who is a little disillusioned by technology and writes about some of the simpler things in life like exploring the outdoors, finding spaces in local nature, cooking real food, and trying to be a good citizen of planet Earth… well, you might be closer to the right place.
At the time I started this I was incredibly cautious about using my real name because of my job and my role supervising people and the fact that I’d been burned in the past by people twisting the things that I’d written against me, words that were genuinely innocent and largely apolitical, but honest and real and left me a bit exposed to people who use those things to their every advantage. I’ve kept my real name off this site for that reason and I write under the moniker of Bardo. The name has a couple meanings and you can look up the eastern spiritual meaning yourself, but it was also the name of a character in a book I read decades ago that stuck with me for his personal philosophy and the struggles he had abiding it. It worked for me then, and it still does now.
I haven’t written here in a while because life has been full of chaos and change.
Most notably, I burnt out my professional soul to a deep fried crisp and voluntarily left the job that had done the burning out. As I write these words I’ve been on a “career break” for almost exactly four months, in which time I’ve been on three international trips, trained for and run a marathon, started a personal journey of pursing the creative life I abandoned when I was young for more practical and “paying” jobs, and generally tried to heal that aforementioned burnt out soul.
I logged into this site again this morning and noted that while I’ve been off exploring the woods, travelling the world, and making art, people have been reading what I wrote here during those pandemic-writing years. Some of the posts, I kid you not, have over a hundred thousand clicks, and if I had comments turned on I’m sure would be filled with neglected interactions.
So, what’s a cast iron guy to do with a mature blog in which he’s not sure what to write anymore? I suppose, this reintroduction is a start, but maybe a promise that I’ll try to come back here, while not daily, routinely to post more stuff. I still cook. I still explore. I still take excellent care of a respectable cast iron collection.
If that’s worth anything, stay tuned.
