Yes, you ARE abusing your cast iron if you are using soap on it. The 'black residue' is SUPPOSED to be there, and acts as a non-stick agent. The MORE of it you can get built up, the better non-stick properties you will have. I would not suggest using any food type oils on your cast iron, as they will turn rancid and sticky. I use mineral oil, as it will not turn rancid or cause odd flavors. I have a Lodge cast iron wok, and it has never been touched with soap, (except for initial washing). I used high temp flat black spray paint on the exterior. Conventional stoves do not typically get hot enough to properly use a wok. I would not use a steel wok on your glass cooktop. That ring you will need to use to keep it "flat" will concentrate the heat not only on your wok, but on your cooktop as well, which will crack (glass tops), or burn thru the metal on conventional tops, if you use your wok a lot. I pre-heat my cast iron wok for about 15 min on high, to sear the meat, but once that is done, and I add veggies, etc., it rapidly loses the stored heat, and the stove top cannot produce enough heat to keep the wok properly heated. As to steaming in your cast iron cookware, I personally dont see the problem. I steam frequently, and have never had a problem. If you properly care for your cast iron cookware, rust should not be a problem. Besides, iron is GOOD for you, even if its rust, lol. As to cleaning, I went to restaurant supply place, and got a plastic handled brush, (made with coconut fibers), and that is all I use to clean my cast iron stuff with. I put water in the wok, and bring it to a HARD BOIL, then transfer to the sink, and scrub away with the stiff bristled coconut brush. I rinse it out, and return it to the stove and put the burner on HIGH for several minutes, and I just store it. IF I know it will be in the cabinet for a long period, (Yeah, right, lol, like cast iron stays away for long), I will put a LIGHT coating of MINERAL OIL on it. This is just what I do, your mileage may vary, read your owners manual, and the usual disclaimer language, LOL. Feel free to email me if I can be of further assistance. Regards; bluelytes@yahoo.com

I have a 10th grade education too. My husband is trilangual, has 2 advanced degrees, one in English (though it's his second language) and one in Physics and currently, he's in school for programming. He's the smartest person I know and yet he comes to me for advise. Go figure! He says that he may be smart but I'm the wise one. I say we balance each other out. My point is, education comes in all different forms and the opportunities available to each of us may differ but that doesn't make one any less intelligent than the other. I am always so impressed with the wide and diverse thinking that is shared here. EVERYONE brings something unique and worth reading to this forum and that's what makes it special. Just because someones' punctuation isn't on par is really no indication of what they have to bring to the table. This thread has been a reminder to me that even with the little things, tolerance is key.

Thanks for the suggestions and appreciated the input. Agreed that one should inform his family if it's emergency. Possibility he might be suffering from early stages of dementia and I have no idea if he is seeking medical profession for that. Why, he's got symptoms like short term memory loss (cannot remember recent events), anxiety, depression, changes in his behaviour and personality. He said he has been having a gradual short term memory loss over a number of years. I know of another elderly friend and this friend too is suffering from gradual short term memory loss and the effect is gradually debilitating. It's difficult to suggest to him to go check his short term memory loss out with a doctor, as he is not one that would take advise well. So all I can do is give him a phone number of helplines here and let him sort it out himself. I will add that he is finding it hard like confused and lost with even managing his own life. He also suffers from bowel issues and must go to the toilet straight away. It's not funny because wait till you and I reached an elderly age we too would suffer from incontinence and bowel problems, therefore have some compassion and empathy. Many years ago I know of a friend's Mum she suffered from dementia for many years and no one knew about it, not even my friend and my friend's Mum's relatives. It was only a year before she passed away something was done about it. My friend after living in another country for a decade, had to make decision to come back after making the decision to live in another country for good, then returned to sort the situation out. I can inform you that my friend's Mum's condition by the time it was sorted out it was very sad, because my friend's Mum did not seek medical profession to get assistance and help years before, therefore no one knew my friend's Mum was suffering from dementia to intervene earlier.

Generally I know a lot about SoCal climate and soils, but I've never had any experience north of I-10 up the 405 beyond the coastal range. I suspect, because there is a coastal range, that you are not influenced by the sea breezes like they are on the coastal side of the hills. You're a bit dryer and warmer (am I correct?). With that in mind there are a few grass types you should not attempt to grow. Those are the fescues, like the ever popular SoCal favorite, Marathon, and Kentucky bluegrass. You should stick with the more drought friendly grasses like bermuda and St Augustine. If your back yard has full sun all day, then either one is fine. If you have fewer than 6 hours of FULL sun in the summer, then bermuda is not going to be a happy experience. Either of these two grasses will need 1 inch of water every now and then* to remain nice in the summer. If you go on vacation and find out that your sprinkler broke 3 weeks ago, then a St Augustine lawn might die on you, but a bermuda lawn will not die from lack of water. In that sense it is often said that bermuda is a more drought tolerant grass. But as I said, if you want the grass to look nice, any grass will need periodic watering. *The watering mantra is deep and infrequent. Deep means 1 inch of water all at one time. Infrequent depends on your air temperature. Here's the guide: With temps above 90 degrees F, water deeply once per week. With temps in the 80s, water deeply once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, water once every 3 weeks. The rest of the year water once a month. This does not take rain into consideration. If you get some rain, then watch the grass for signs of wilting and then water deeply and get back on the frequency based on temperature. You can measure how long it takes YOUR sprinkler system to deliver 1 inch by placing several cat food or tuna cans around the yard. Turn the sprinkler on and time how long it takes to fill them. That will be your watering time from now on. Mine take 8 full hours with my water pressure and my hose and sprinkler. My neighbor's high flow system only takes 20 minutes - but an inch is an inch no matter how long it takes to get it down. 1 inch of water over 1,000 square feet is 625 gallons. For perspective a typical swimming pool holds about 35,000 gallons. Truly compacted soil is almost impossible to achieve for a home owner unless you are playing football on completely saturated soil. Usually people have hard soil, but not truly compacted. A way the professionals have found to loosen hard soil is to spray it with an expensive surfactant. What we have found useful is to spray any clear shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. So if you have 2,000 square feet of grass, put 6 ounces of shampoo into a hose-end sprayer, fill the rest of the bottle with water, and spray evenly over the yard at a medium rate until the bottle is empty. Follow that up with 1/2 to 1 inch of irrigation and wait 3 weeks. After that your soil should become very soft when it is moist. It will become very hard again, though, until you irrigate, so be aware of that. I sprayed mine back in 2012 and have not had to spray it again since. If you want it softer you can repeat spraying every 3 weeks, forever. If you make a mistake and spray it too strong, don't worry. Shampoo does not seem to have any ill effects at almost any rate. Use a clear shampoo like baby shampoo - something you can see through. Think about the grass choices and pick something. We can help you get it established without too much hassle. Hybrid bermuda and St Augustine comes as a sod. The bermuda will be less expensive. If that is still too expensive (rental), then you can buy bermuda seed for much less. If you go with seed you should not put the seed down until June. Bermuda seed needs very warm soil to germinate. There is a process to go through to get your yard ready for sod or seed. Before you do anything, know that rototilling is NOT the way to prep the soil. Anything you need to do can be done from the top. Basic prep is to kill all the weeds (twice), put the seed or sod down, roll it with a roller, and water. There's a little more detail I could add, but that will give you an idea of what you're in for. After you decide what to put down we can get more specific. If you want to get a soil test (optional), get the $25 test from Logan Labs in Ohio. They have an excellent test process and if you post the results here, morpheuspa will read the test and tell you what to apply, when, how much, how often, and where to buy it.