On 8/23/2004, Psychotron wrote:

>Well... Not exactly ruined, but I think I have to
>start over with seasoning. She fried up some sausage
>and left the grease standing in it for about 3 days.
>She doesn't like my iron skillet and expected me to
>clean it. I left it assuming she would do it. I
>finally gave in and cleaned it.

3 days? Have you washed the dishes from that meal yet, or
are you going to have to throw the dishes away and buy new
ones? You do use dishes, don't you?

OK, enough of that, but it was just too tempting. If you do
a search on cast iron pans, you'll find lots of sites that discuss
caring for and restoring cast iron. There's more than one way
to do this, but you may need some patience and elbow grease.
I'll assume - because you don't say - the "black flakes" are dried, scorched
food residue.

I would wipe the pan out with a wadded paper towel as best as
you can and discard any loosened flakes. Apply a light coating of shortening
or vegetable oil to the pan and gradually warm the pan
over low heat. This is not reseasoning yet. This is just a cleaning process and
what you're trying to do is soften the crusty surface.
When the pan is warm - not hot - remove it from the heat, let it cool
a bit until it's comfortable to work with. Wipe the pan with a paper
towel. You may have to do this more than once. At some point, you
will get as far as you're going to get with this process.

If you're not satisfied, I'd go through one more cycle of greasing and warming.
You can either try to remove additional crust by lightly
rubbing the surface with fine steel wool. I wouldn't be too aggressive about
this. Alternatively, apply a nice coating of salt - any relatively
fine salt would be ok - table salt, sea salt, plain or fancy, cheap or
expensive. I just wouldn't use, for example, a coarse sea salt. Again,
use a wadded paper towel, but you can rub very aggressively. Wipe
the pan out. Depending on whether you're satisfied, you can repeat
this process. At some point, you will get as far as you're reasonably going to
get. If you're satisfied, reseason. If not, replace the pan. I'm
sure you know that you can restore used pans which are often available at
thrift stores and garage/estate sales. If money's no object, go to
Sur La Table or another fancier retailer.

Your pan will never be "perfectly" clean, particularly if it has raised
grill ridges. For myself, I don't use water to clean my pans. I use the
salt method, applying the salt while the pan is still warm so it can
start to absorb the pan residue while it's still hot.