I've heard that some families head straight home from the funeral and start rummaging through the jewelry box. In my family, we tend to hover about the kitchen while eyeing the cast iron cookware.

Everyone knows when it comes to live oak trees, wine and cast iron, older is better.

I've rightfully come into several skillets of varying sizes, but the two I use most, sometimes three times a day, belonged to my grandmothers. The large skillet is from the maternal side, and the medium is from the paternal clan. Both pans are seasoned to perfection. I use these heavy pans for everything from brown sugared bacon to pineapple upside down cake. A simple swish in the kitchen sink in-between uses keeps the flavors pure. The perfect purveyors of heat, every dish cooked in cast iron comes out even and tasty.

My husband's family never used cast iron cookware (bless his mama's New York heart), and the first month we were married, I caught him feverishly scrubbing one of my skillets with STEEL WOOL! He quickly learned the art of proper cast iron care and also gained a new appreciation for the art of a proper hissy fit.

But the one cast iron pan I don't own is a deep-sided pot for frying. I guess I could go purchase one for myself, but it just seems if I wait it out, someone may not be feeling so well, and I'll inherit one that's already broken in. I don't fry things too often because of the mess, not to mention the cholesterol (Grandmother passed that down too), but it occurred to me that perhaps if I had a deeper pot, I wouldn't be left with hot popping grease burns on my arms.

We have an outdoor deep fryer used by the men for large cooking jobs like big batches of fish and hushpuppies, or even whole turkeys. The burly men don't like to bother with any of the smaller indoor cooking jobs, because there's no element of danger involved.

When one of my sons recently completed a major project with glorious results, I decided to reward him with his choice of a special treat. I was thinking he would opt for ice cream from Mr. Gene's Beans, but instead, he requested fried okra. Not what most 13 year olds want, but then again, he's a unique thinker.

I tried to change his mind and steer him back toward the ice cream, because it takes all of five minutes to run into the popular De La Mar Street shop and grab a cone, but it takes forever and a day to fry okra. Chopping, dipping in the wet mix, dipping in the dry mix, frying, draining — and then there's the colossal clean up afterward. And of course, I'm back to the issue of not having a deep enough pot.

But honey, if my sweet boy wants okra, then I'm going to fry him okra. When he grows up, I don't want him telling his wife I never cooked okra for him. What kind of Mother is that? Come to think of it, I do a lot of things around my house to impress my two future unknown daughter-in-laws that at this point are at least 15 years in the future (let's hope). That should give me plenty of time to complete my set of perfectly seasoned cast iron cookware, over which the lovely daughter in laws will someday tussle. At least, if they are the right kind of girls, they will.

I'll be thrilled to pass the collection of cast iron to the next generation in line, as long as they use it to cook my sons some perfectly seasoned, hot and crispy okra.

Although . . . I'm just modern-enough of a belle to think maybe it's time my sons learned to fry their own okra — especially if there's a chance their future wives come from a non-cast iron kind of family. Because God help us, then we'll have bigger fish to fry.

Leslie Anne Harrison is a contributor to Fairhope Supply Co. blog, FairhopeSupply.com, and The Southern Coterie.