When I was about 8 my grandfather drove down to Portland from Vancouver, WA, where he lived, to pick me up for my first baking lesson. I was a shy kid, a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, because up until that year he had worked for Aramco, living in Saudi Arabia, and I really didn't know him that well. We rambled back up the hills near our West Portland home, away from the safety of my neighborhood and friends, over the new bridge crossing the Columbia River, to his house off 39th street. There I was put on a stool, draped in an old Green Bay sweatshirt, and versed in the art of popover making, eyes glued on the lesson before me, from this tenured Grandpa Popover. Baking to him was a well-honed craft, art in its purest form, and he was on a mission to teach, test and graduate me before I left that stool. I remained at full attention, taking mental notes, assigning each step and ingredient to memory. I knew this was more important than a spelling test, the multiplication tables, emptying the cat box. Popovers were next to Godliness in my family and I could not fail. Now It was my turn. I was instructed to mix the ingredients in their proper order, whip them together with tornado speed, and suspend breathing when pouring the yellowy goo into "The Pan". Next I was quizzed on the exact procedure, precise measurements, and, most importantly, using a cast iron, well-seasoned popover pan, heated in the oven till fire-hot, like a branding iron sizzling through the skin of a Texas steer. Once safe in the oven I was free to watch the magic of these rising giants through the glass door, all the while listening to Grandpa wear out the cast iron rationalization. Nothing would do but this greatest of cookware, and to hear him tell it one felt the detail important enough to go to war over, another favorite topic of his, being from Texas and all. We had just studied the topic in school, and personally, I couldn't understand why we even wanted Texas, let alone go to war over it, but I kept these thoughts to myself. Apparently I passed my popover test with accolades because on the way back to Portland, we stopped at the wreck of a hardware store down on First Avenue, walking out with a brand new cast iron popover pan of my own, weighing some four pounds less than I did; a tool that remains to this day among the clutter of cooking treasures accumulating, it seems, like the dozens of socks in my drawers without a match. That was over forty years ago, but it could have been yesterday, a savory memory etched on my forehead and relived time and again when I bite into a steamy-hot, buttery, tender popover from the legendary power of cast-iron cookery. Thank you for sharing this beautiful memory.

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