Yeah, right, haha! I can't wait to see her face after such a stressful trip!

I got hit with a frying pan when we were trying to replace my wife’s mother’s non-stick pans that were starting to flake. My mother-in-law is legally blind, and after we gave her the new pans she showed me the old one, saying, “look at it, it’s perfect!” My response of, “it’s even worse than she said!” was the wrong thing to say to an elderly woman holding a pan.

Sorceress ;)

Yeah, this is the first step in properly refurbishing cast iron.

It's actually better if you do this on new pan you bought, it strip away the pre-season and smoothen the surface a bit before you apply the seasoning of your choice.

My COVID splurge was a 12" milled cast iron pan that's smooth as hell. Eggs slide on this baby. I would carry it up a mountain if I knew someone at the top had butter.

My dad's is like that it actually cooks surprisingly well and doesn't stick.

Cast iron is "seasoned" to make it nonstick. That means many layers of oil build up as a sort of polymer. The point is to keep it "dirty" in this way. Cleaning it down to bare metal means she'd be forced to re-season it, which can take considerable time/effort depending on frequency of use. A true disservice.

Cast iron pans have to be burned in with oil to create a non-stick patina. If you use aggressive cleaning agents or steel wool, this patina gets stripped, and the process has to be repeated

I think I see where you're going with this and I love it. Adding some nice badges as a finishing touch:

get the grill ripping hot outside (500 degrees)

put cooking oil on a paper towel and swab the whole cast iron pan

Throw it on the grill until it stops smoking

pull it off, let it cool a little and swab it again (super thin layer)

Throw it on the grill until it stops smoking

repeat until you're happy with the color

Most surefire way I know is preheat your oven to 450, put a tiny but of canola, rapeseed, or another neutral oil on it, wipe off as much as you can with a paper towel and toss it in the oven for half an hour, the nrepeat 3 or 4 times. When I say remove as much oil as much as you can, I mean the towel should come away juat about dry. Then to cook with it, let it get hot first, add some form of fat, butter, oil, bacon grease, etc. and then add your food. Waiting for it to get hot first is the key.

Preheat the oven to ~450-500, throw the pans in for five minutes to drive out any moisture.

Pull the pans out, and apply a very thin coat of oil using a paper towel or lint-free cloth. Flax oil is best, low-temperature oils in general are better than frying oils here. Put the coated pans back in the oven for ~45-60 minutes, then remove. Repeated coats will significantly increase the strength of the coating

Seconding Pissman's advice. The only other tip that I know of is to encrust it with salt as well as oil, but that seems to be expensive and unnecessary. Honestly just cooking several pounds of bacon in it will do the same thing.

A well seasoned cast iron IS non stick