Calling the kettle black

I have a difficult relationship with my cast iron pan.  I love it dearly. I have worked on the finish for several years. I promised it that it would never see soap. The center is approaching teflon. The only thing ever used to clean it is coarse salt with the occasional splash of vinegar. I have never had to re-season it and start the process over. It can bake a mean Tart Tatin and then, with the caramel rinsed out, put some serious sear on a marinated slab of tofu. I once made banana walnut brownies in it over a campfire.

I love the weight of it. Twelve inches across and approaching five pounds. How I could just kill a man. I have insulated red leather gloves from Lodge for when the handle gets problematically hot, which I also use as oven mitts.

Sadly, it has never had the joy of Steak au Poivre, or a brined pork chop, or a thick rasher of bacon. I know it would love to put a crispy skin onto a butterflied chicken. But then it would be confined to the "kitchen items you can't cook for J with" area of the kitchen. Currently, the only resident in that neighborhood is a plastic cutting board for meat. 

Often it sits, coolly watching from the back burner, as one of it's lesser peers sears a piece of meat. It watches quietly, knowing it could do a better job. And I feel sad for it.